Schoolgirl Jen at the Abbey

by Elsie J. Oxenham

  “Make her fetch the book. Then we’ll see for ourselves,” Janice suggested. “I hope it’s safe!”

  “It would be ghastly to lose it now and never know what it had been!” Jen was breathless with eagerness. “The book’s safe at home, isn’t it, Vinny?”

  Lavinia stared at her, puzzled by all the excitement. “I did think as how it were too old to be any good and I’d just burn it,” she began.

  “Vinny! But you didn’t do it?” Joan cried.

  “Oh, Vinny! Say you didn’t burn it!” Jen was almost in tears. “You couldn’t do such an awful thing!”

  “Ease our minds, Lavinia!” Janice implored. “Is the book still safe?”

  “Yes, miss. I didn’t do it. I thought I’d ask you first. I knows as how Miss Joan likes old things.”

  “Oh, thanks be!” Jen gasped. “I’d have died if we’d never seen that book!”

  Without a word Joan went to the telephone.

  They all gazed after her, Jen and Janice tense with suspense, Lavinia alarmed and bewildered.

  Joan returned in a moment. “Vinny, Mr. Clarke, from the village, is coming round in his little car. He uses it as a taxi, you know; our car is at the seaside. He’s going to take you to King’s Bottom to fetch the book. We’ll tell you whether you should burn it or not. You’ll bring it to us, won’t you?”

  “You said you were going to give it to me!” Jen urged.

  “I’ll do it, Miss Joan. I’ll give it to Miss Jen.” Lavinia was obviously a little frightened and very much puzzled. “But it ain’t nothing to fuss about. It’s just the things she did every day.”

  “Even if it’s only, ‘Helped Mother in the dairy—Fed the hens—Picked peas—Played with the cat,’ it will be interesting, because it happened so long ago,” Jen explained, her eyes eager.

  “Wouldn’t you like to go with her in the car, Jandy Mac? Then you’d see her farm,” Joan suggested.

  “I’d love it! I’ll see she doesn’t burn that book!” Janice ran upstairs for her coat.

  “Don’t you want to go, Joan?” Jen asked wistfully. “I’m afraid I can’t. That wee car on farm roads would bump too much, and it would hurt. You’d see the book sooner if you went.”

  “You and I are going to wait here till Lavinia and Jandy bring the book,” Joan assured her.

  “We won’t look at it or talk about it till we’ve brought it back to you,” Janice promised. “Here’s the car. Come on, Lavinia!”

  CHAPTER XVII

  JANE’S SECRET HOUSE

  Joan looked at Jen anxiously. “This is far too thrilling for a semi-invalid! Calm down, Jenny-Wren! It will be fun to read Jane’s old diary, but it isn’t likely to be important.”

  “It’s better than the hymn-book!” Jen chuckled. “We guessed a lot of things, but we never thought of a diary! It’s a real thrill! I’m so glad her name was Jane. It’s the same as you, and me, and Ambrose’s Jehane; lots of Janes!”

  “Jane Miles isn’t connected with the Abbey. Jen, who do you suppose her father was?”

  Jen stared at her. “I don’t know! Do you? How can you know? A farmer who did something so awful that he ought to have been hanged, but who ran away and escaped, leaving Jane behind. That’s all I know about him!”

  “They hanged people for theft in those days. It doesn’t mean he was a murderer. Don’t you think he may have been our highwayman, who hid his booty in the Abbey?”

  Jen leapt up with a shout. “Of course he was! Oh, Joan, how clever of you! The thief who robbed Katharine Marchwood of her locket and purse up on the hills! And we found them in the Abbey, and you gave them to me! I’m sure that’s who he was!”

  “I think so,” Joan assented. “We didn’t know what had become of him, but evidently he fled from the country. Perhaps he heard people were coming to take him, and he had no time to go to the Abbey and search for his wallet, with the rings and pearls and things.”

  “I expect he had some others tucked away,” Jen grinned. “I say, Joan, you don’t think the jewels ought to belong to Lavinia, do you? She’s his descendant, I suppose. But I don’t want to give her my little blue ring!”

  “They were stolen goods,” Joan reminded her. “Lavinia has no claim on them. But I think it would be a reason for helping her to go to her father, if he makes any difficulty about her fare.”

  “Oh, she must go to Canada! Because of those cousins, you know.”

  “I was going to ask what your look meant when she said she had cousins, and why you were so glad they were boys.”

  “You know quite well! They’re sure to want to marry her, and then she’ll be nicely settled, with a house of her own. She’s jolly pretty, now that her hair’s done properly.”

  “It would be a happy way out for Lavinia,” Joan admitted. “But we can’t arrange it.”

  “We can hope for it, and we can make sure she goes to live with them, and we can tell her to write to us,” Jen retorted. “I hope it happens. Oh, I wish they’d hurry! I’m aching to see my book!”

  It was not long before the car came racing up the beech avenue, but it seemed a long time to Joan, and a very long time to impatient Jen.

  Janice jumped out and pulled Vinny after her. “There, Lavinia, take that book to Jen quickly! It’s safe, Jenny-Wren!”

  Jen sat on her couch, her eyes blazing with excitement, her hands outstretched. Joan, standing by, watched her anxiously.

  Lavinia ran to her and thrust a parcel into her hands.

  “My aunty found it in the attic, and she give it to me and said as how it wasn’t nothing to do with Mr. Jaikes, but it belonged to the Miles people, and my name was Miles; hers was Browning. I’m giving it to you, Miss Jen, because you been so sweet to me,” she said, all in one breath.

  “I didn’t know I’d been sweet, but it’s marvellous of you to think so, Vinny Miles!” Jen tore away the paper and found a small leather-bound book.

  With a little gasp, she opened it and showed a great many blank pages and a few covered with tiny, crabbed writing.

  “She didn’t go on doing it.” Lavinia watched her anxiously. “She wrote it at the beginning, and then she stopped.”

  Janice grinned. “A lot of us are like that with diaries! I’ve started ever so many, but I never went very far in any of them.”

  “Look!” Jen whispered. “Inside the front cover: ‘Jane Miles. Her Book. King’s Bottom Farm.’ Doesn’t it make her seem real?”

  “Are there any dates?” Joan asked.

  “Only the month—February or March or April. She doesn’t trouble to put the year,” Jen said sadly. “It’s too bad of her, and very lazy.”

  “Very slack. We ought to know what year it was,” Janice said severely.

  “It’s a disappointment, but we can’t have everything. Read us bits, Jen! Is it about feeding the hens and playing with the cat?”

  “That sort of thing. The first bit she’s written is: ‘My puss has three black kits in the barn. I shall take one to my house.’ Why would she take only one to the house?”

  “I expect the mother cat lived in the barn,” Joan said.

  “The house would be much nicer for them! Then she says: ‘Played at my house all day. Nobody knows. It is my own place.’ What does she mean, Joan?”

  “I’ve no idea. Surely everybody knew her house?”

  “Here it is again: ‘Went to my house. No one can find me there. Took pan, and a plate, and a knife. Mother says they are lost.’ Joan, what is she talking about?”

  “It sounds as if she was furnishing a secret place,” Joan said. “I’m afraid Jane had something of her father in her, if she took household goods and let her mother think they were lost.”

  “A secret!” Jen chuckled. “A hiding-place, where no one could find her, and where she played house. This is sport, Vinny! Your ancestress was a bad girl, but she was rather fun. Listen to this bit: ‘Took potatoes to my house, and an old jug, cracked, but it holds water, and a cake.’ She was going to have a picnic! I won
der if she made a fire and cooked the potatoes?”

  “She couldn’t eat them raw,” Janice remarked. “I wonder where the secret place was? Jane seems to have been very human! It’s just what any small girl would love to do.”

  “She takes ‘a curting’. Would that be a curtain?” Jen asked. “Oh, yes! The next thing is ‘a cushing’—cushion, I suppose! They must have missed—oh, she owns up! Oh, good! Listen, everybody: ‘Told Mother about my house. She gave me a rug and a pail and a spoon.’ So her mother was nice about it!”

  “I expect Jane had taken so many things that she had to confess. What an understanding mother!” Joan said. “I wonder if the black kitten went there too?”

  Jen turned the page. “It isn’t easy to read; the writing’s so tiny. Here she says: ‘In my house all day. Mother bothered about Dad. Told me to go and play and not come back till dark.’ Oh, do you think they were getting worried about him?”

  “The highwayman, Jandy Mac,” Joan said quickly. “Don’t you think it’s very likely?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. Sure to be!” Janice exclaimed. “They were afraid the police were on his track and that he’d have to go, and they wanted Jane out of the way. Any more, Jenny-Wren?”

  Lavinia stared blankly. The reference to the highwayman was beyond her, but she realised that the girls were pleased and interested about her book.

  “A little more. Jane writes next day: ‘Mother cried, again about Dad. He didn’t come home last night. She don’t like his goings-on.’ I bet she didn’t, poor soul! Here’s something else: ‘Mother says Dad will have to go away, to France or somewhere. She cries and cries. She tells me to go to my house every day.’ They wanted to get rid of Jane.”

  “I wonder where this mysterious house was?” Janice pondered. “Some distance from the farm, evidently.”

  “Jane had no idea what her dad had been doing. Here’s something odd: ‘Took Peter to my house. Must go each day to feed him. Left the others with their mother.’ Joan, who was Peter? Did she steal him too?”

  “Don’t you think he was the black kit?”

  “He was! He was!” Jen shouted. “The very next day she says: ‘Went to feed Peter. He caught a mouse. Not hungry. Caught mice all night, maybe.’ The secret place must have been overrun with mice. She’s cooking at last, Joan: ‘Made fire and boiled potatoes. Water from fish-stream. Dad told me——’ The fish-stream! She couldn’t mean—Joan! What does Jane mean?”

  “What did her dad tell her?” Joan demanded, looking startled.

  Jen read on hastily: “‘Dad told me the Old Ones kept their fish in the stream, but I never saw any.’ The Old Ones! Joan!” Jen gave a cry. “The Old Ones would be the monks! It was our fish-stream! Joan, the secret house must have been in the Abbey! Oh, Joan, is it true?”

  “It sounds very much like it!” Joan exclaimed. “After all, we know the Abbey was a heap of ruins at that time. What better place could there be for a child’s secret play-house? I expect Jane found some corner that wasn’t too messed up, and cleared it out and made her private place there. What a wonderful bit to add to our Abbey history!”

  “The highwayman’s daughter playing house in some corner, while her dad fled across the sea,” Janice added. “A new story for you, Abbey-girl!”

  “I wonder where it was? Yes, it’s a real addition to our pictures of the Abbey,” Joan said happily.

  “It’s just marvellous!” Jen’s quiet tone was reverent. “We had story-pictures of the Abbey when Jehane and Ambrose were young and in love; and we thought we had a picture of it when Ambrose was old and lived in the gate-house, and the Abbey was in ruins. Then Katharine’s book made that picture real and gave us Minette and her baby, and the squirrel and the birds, so that we have stories for that time too. But we’ve had nothing about the Abbey for all those centuries when it was cluttered up with rubbish and farm stuff—except the highwayman hiding his stolen goods in the tunnels underground. Now we know that Jane Miles had found the Abbey, and had made a secret place in some corner and played house there with Black Peter! Isn’t it wonderful, Joan?”

  “It’s very satisfying,” Joan said. “Vinny Miles, your book is a treasure. May we really keep it? It belongs to the Abbey, you know.”

  “It’s for Miss Jen, please.”

  “That means it’s for the Abbey.” Jen beamed on her joyfully. “It will be kept carefully as a very precious thing, Vinny. We’ll write in it: ‘Given to the Abbey by Lavinia Miles.’ Then, when you’re across the sea, people will remember you and little Jane.”

  “Oh, Miss Jen! I’d like that terrible much!”

  “Is there any more?” Joan asked. “Can’t you find out whereabouts the secret house was?”

  Jen turned to the book again. “There’s a little more, but I don’t know if it will help. Here’s another bit: ‘To-day made my house bigger by moving the apples. But I hope Farmer Edwards will not come.’ Because he’d see she’d been messing about with his apples, I suppose!”

  “Apples!” There was meaning in Joan’s tone.

  Jen and Janice looked at her.

  “What’s up, Joan-Queen?” Jen cried.

  “Do the apples tell you anything?” Janice demanded.

  “The story is that the day-room was used for keeping straw in, and the chapter-house for storing apples,” Joan explained, her voice exultant. “Jane’s secret place was in a corner of the chapter-house.”

  “How clever of you, Joan!” Janice exclaimed.

  “How lovely to know!” Jen cried. “I shall always think of Jane when I go into the chapter-house now! I can just see her, pushing the apples away and putting down her rug and her cushion and hanging up the curtain—to make a sort of tent, perhaps—and making a little fire and cooking, and crawling under the curtain and feeling safe from everybody. She must have been very fond of her house!”

  “She probably spoiled the apples, by pushing them all into a heap,” Janice laughed. “Apples aren’t supposed to touch one another.”

  Jen sat fingering the little book, while Lavinia gazed at her in deep content. Vinny did not understand the story in the least—it would have to be explained to her carefully by Jen and Joan—but she knew that her gift had satisfied the girls, and it made her very happy.

  “There’s a little more of the diary.” Jen came out of her dream, to find Joan and Janice watching her also. “We’d better read to the end. I wonder why Jane stopped?”

  “Most people get tired of writing diaries,” Janice remarked.

  “I say, there’s a story here!” Jen gave a chuckle of delight. “Listen, all of you: ‘To-day Dad came to my house. Mother told him to hide in it, because they were after him. He hid with me and Peter all day. I went to fetch water and I saw them looking for him, but they did not come, and he was safe.’ Just a heap of ruins! Why should they come?”

  “And the highwayman was lying snugly in a corner of the chapter-house!” Janice laughed. “Well, well!”

  “The Abbey was harbouring a fugitive, who had sought sanctuary there,” Joan began, her eyes lighting up. “We can’t approve of the highwayman, but I’m glad he wasn’t found hiding in the Abbey.”

  “Joan, what a lovely idea!” Jen cried. “An ancient stowaway in the Abbey! I am so thankful they didn’t find him!”

  “You’re sure they didn’t?” Janice asked, while Joan sat dreaming over this addition to her Abbey’s history.

  “No, he got away that night. Jane helped him; she says so. She adds: ‘Dear knows if we shall ever see him again.’ I don’t suppose they did, poor things!”

  “No, he wouldn’t dare to come back. Perhaps Jane went to France and joined him,” Joan suggested.

  “Her didn’t,” Lavinia said suddenly. “Her’s in churchyard here. ‘Jane Miles, aged fourteen,’ it says.”

  “She died soon after she wrote about her secret place,” Jen whispered. “She was only my age. Well, I’m glad she had her house to play with. I’m sure she loved it. And it helped to save her
father’s life. That’s the end of her story. Perhaps she didn’t go back to it after he’d gone away.”

  “Perhaps she stayed at home to comfort her mother,” Joan said.

  “There’s something else in that book,” said Lavinia suddenly.

  “I’ve read it all!” Jen cried. “What do you mean, Vinny?”

  “I’ll show you, Miss Jen. I d’n know what it means, but I thought as how maybe you’d understand.”

  Lavinia took the book, and the three girls crowded closely round her to see what she would do.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  JANE’S SECRET MAP

  “Look!” said Lavinia. “A sort o’ pocket place at the end.”

  The back cover of the book had been slit carefully, to leave a gap between the lining and the outside. Vinny’s fingers slipped in and drew out a folded paper.

  “It was hers—Jane’s. Her name’s on it,” she said.

  “Yes, there it is!” Jen almost whispered in her excitement. “‘Dad gave this to me and told me to keep it safe, for it would bring me luck. But what it means I do not know.—Jane Miles.’ Gosh! Didn’t the highwayman explain?”

  “He hoped to come back,” Joan said. “Or he had to go in a hurry. He’d meant to stay another night, and he’d have told her more, but she came back from fetching water and told him she had seen ‘them’, and he decided to go that night. What is the paper, Jen?”

  “We’re good at making sense of mysterious documents,” Janice urged.

  Jen unfolded the paper and spread it on her lap. The three girls stared at it and then looked at one another blankly.

  “There isn’t much of it,” Joan began.

  “I can’t make anything out of that!” Janice wailed. “The only thing I can say is that it bears a remarkable family likeness to the maps I brought home.”

  “That’s hopeful. For we made out what they meant and found treasures,” Joan exclaimed.

  “But there’s far less of this one! It’s only two lines and a spot.”

  Jen gazed at the marks on the paper and frowned. There were two long lines, one straight, one wavy. Between them was a small cross. On the straight line there was a square, level with the cross and shaded with slanting lines.