Stowaways in the Abbey

by Elsie J. Oxenham

  Jen touched a spring and opened the locket, to show a yellow curl of baby hair, soft and silky. She pointed at the monogram on both purse and locket.

  “K.M.,” Jack agreed. “I know; you found them in the Abbey, at the door of Timothy’s tunnel. You thought a highwayman must have hidden them, centuries ago. Well?”

  “Ambrose’s tunnel. I won’t have it given to Timothy Spindle! Dear old Ambrose used it for fifty years. Don’t you see, Jacky-boy? I’ve always said K.M. must stand for Kitty or Kate Marchwood, and that she was robbed as she was crossing the hills on her way home.”

  “It might just as well be M.K.,” Jack argued.

  “Not with the Marchwoods living so near! I’m sure it belonged to a Marchwood girl, and I want to prove it.”

  Jack stared at her. “How are you going to do that?”

  “It’s just a chance, of course, but it came to me suddenly that in the house there might be old family portraits, like those of Joy’s ancestors in the hall downstairs; and there might, just possibly, be one of Kitty Marchwood, wearing her locket. Then I’d know for certain.”

  Jack gave a hoot of derision. “A million chances against it!”

  “I know. But there’s always one chance in a million. You’ll come, won’t you? We won’t do any harm or touch a single thing. I only want to creep into the house and see if there are any portraits.”

  “It’s mad,” Jack protested. “Quite mad. And it’s not worth while. You won’t find anything.”

  “I might. Now I’ve thought of it I shall never settle down until I’ve tried.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you will,” Jack agreed. “You’ll go on burbling about your Kitty Marchwood. Oh, I’ll come! I must look after you; there’s no saying what mad thing you’ll do if I let you go alone. But there’s not the least chance of your finding anything.”

  “If I’ve tried, I’ll be able to stop thinking about it.”

  “Right-o! We’ll go to ease your mind. The house is empty, you say?”

  “A caretaker lives in it, but she often goes to the village. Susie Spindle told me; I talked to her this afternoon, before you came. To-morrow’s the Women’s Institute, and Mrs. Price never misses it.”

  “What’s the Institute?”

  “That’s what comes of living in a town! Meetings for women, in villages, and everybody goes. I’ve been to ours at home; quite jolly in parts, and stodgy in others. Mrs. Price will be away from the Manor all afternoon and evening to-morrow.”

  “Looks like our chance. O.K., wife; I’ll back you up, though it’s waste of time and you’re quite mad. But that’s your business.”

  “That’s jolly decent of you, Jacky-boy!” Jen spoke with fervent gratitude. “To-morrow afternoon, then. Now we’d better close this meeting, before Auntie Shirley comes and takes you off to another room.”

  CHAPTER XII

  JEN WRITES TO A BARONET

  “I say, Jen!” Jack sat up in bed.

  Jen yawned and pushed back her plaits. She looked at her watch. “Six o’clock! What energy! Can’t you go to sleep again? Is it the country air?”

  “I’ve thought of something.”

  “Well, I hope you have, since you woke me to tell me about it! If you only want to say good-morning, I shall chuck something at you.”

  “Suppose you find a portrait wearing your locket, with ‘Kitty Marchwood’ written under it—most unlikely, but suppose you do—what then?”

  Jen sat up and stared at her. “Well, then I shall know. And I want to know. It’s almost too much to expect, but it’s what I’m hoping for. What about it?”

  “Then you’ll know your precious purse and locket belong to the Marchwoods. Won’t you feel you have to give them back?”

  Jen gazed at her, her eyes wide with dismay. “I never thought of that!”

  “You were allowed to keep the highwayman’s booty—supposed to be—because you couldn’t possibly hope to find the real owners after a century or so. What’s the point of trying to prove who the owners were?”

  “Jack, you brute!” Jen wailed. “You’ve spoiled my plan! Of course I’d have to give them back!”

  “You’ve a terrific conscience—I know you! I should say you’d better not go near the Manor.”

  Jen lay back and pondered this. “I can’t do that, now I’ve thought of it. I’m sure now that there is a picture, and that it will prove that my things belong to the Marchwoods, and that I shall have to give them back. It’s too frightful to be haunted by the idea. I shall feel the Manor’s reaching out after me, saying, ‘Give us back our treasures’! I must go, now, to prove that there isn’t a portrait, and that the Marchwoods can never claim the things. I shall go in fear and trembling, not in hope; but I’ll have to go. I shall never have an easy mind while I’m thinking there may be a picture of Kitty Marchwood wearing my locket. Don’t you see? I wanted to go before, but I’ll have to go now.”

  Jack gave a grunt, half amusement, half admiration.

  “Just like you! I said you had a conscience. We’d better do it to-day; then your mind will settle down again.”

  “I shall worry until I’ve been,” Jen said gloomily. “I don’t love you one scrap for putting it into my head.”

  “I wonder you hadn’t thought of it for yourself,” Jack retorted. “Seems obvious to me.”

  Jen sighed. “Well, I hadn’t. And I wish you hadn’t. You are a horrid girl. I wish you hadn’t come.”

  Jack grinned. “You do, don’t you? But you can’t send me away now, for I won’t go.”

  Jen lay staring at the ceiling. “Perhaps there won’t be any family portraits. But I shan’t feel safe until I know for certain.”

  “Better go and find out at once. Shall we?”

  “No, dafty. The caretaker-woman would be there.”

  “I forgot. Then we can’t go in the morning. You’ll have to bear the anxiety.”

  “In the morning,” Jen said haughtily, “I am writing to Sir Keith Marchwood about Timothy Spindle.”

  “Gosh, so you are! More Marchwood business! It is odd! I wonder if Joan will like your letter.”

  “Don’t expect so. But she’ll tell me how to put it right.”

  At ten o’clock Jen and Jack were summoned to the terrace under Joan’s window. It was another sunny day, and Nurse had agreed that if her patient was well wrapped up she would take no harm from a few minutes out of bed.

  “There! Doesn’t she look like a bride?” Jen cried. She was less boisterous than usual, however; the letter she clutched in her hand was burdening her.

  “Hallo, Jacky-boy!” Joan said cheerfully. “You’re still all right?”

  “Frightfully fit, thank you, Joan. It’s marvellous to be here. Are you better?”

  “Ever so much. Now, Jenny-Wren, let’s hear your letter. I know it’s on your mind.”

  “It’s as bad as reading out an essay at school,” Jen protested.

  “Let Jack read it for you, then.”

  “No, she’d make it sound silly.”

  “It’s not as bad as all that.” Jack sat on the stone balustrade and swung her legs. “I read it yesterday. It’s quite decent, as a matter of fact.”

  Joan laughed. “Come on, Jenny-Wren! Don’t be shy!”

  Jen took the plunge desperately.

  “Dear Sir Keith Marchwood,—Do you know that you’ve got a very nice boot-boy? But he’s frightfully upset, and so he’s run away from you and come to us for protection. I found him hiding in the Abbey, like a stowaway, and I thought he’d have to be kept safe, because the Abbey was a sanctuary. But Joan Shirley (I’m staying with her, but she and Joy have measles. This letter hasn’t got any; they haven’t touched it)—Joan says it isn’t a sanctuary any longer, because the church has gone. But she says we can bring back the old rights by helping anybody who comes to the Abbey in a mess, and Timothy came, and he’s in a horrible mess. So we want to help him, and Joan can’t write to you because of the measles. That’s why I’m doing it. I’m Jen Robi
ns, and I’m fourteen; I never wrote to a baronet before, so I don’t know how to do it, but I hope it’s all right.

  “Please will you forgive Timothy Spindle and let him have a fresh start? He’s most frightfully sorry about the two shillings, and he’ll never do such a thing again. Some chaps he’d met had laughed at him because he couldn’t afford to go to the pictures as often as they could. It’s rotten to be laughed at, and he loves the pictures. He saw the two shillings and he was tempted. He won’t ever do it again. But he never touched anything from Mr. Kenneth’s room, and it’s a wicked lie, if Mr. Simmonds says he did. He’s terrified of Mr. Simmonds. Must you have such a bullying butler? It seems so horrid for everybody.

  “Timothy likes being in London, and he’d like to go back. Couldn’t you give him another chance? And please, couldn’t you protect him from Mr. Simmonds?

  “If you want to know more about him, I’ll be glad to write again. But I don’t want to bother you any more just now.—Yours faithfully,

  “Jen Robins.”

  As she read, Jen kept glancing anxiously up at Joan. She saw Joan’s lips twitch once or twice, and as she finished she added, all in one breath:

  “Well, what’s wrong with it? If it’s as bad as that, tell me what I ought to say!”

  “There’s nothing wrong with it, Jenny-Wren,” Joan said mildly. “It’s a little unusual here and there, but it may be all the better for that.”

  Jen looked at her doubtfully. “It’s just exactly what I wanted to say, so I thought I’d better go straight ahead and say it.”

  “Much the best plan, but people aren’t always sensible enough or brave enough to do it. I like your letter very much.”

  “It would save a jolly lot of trouble, if people did say what they wanted to say,” Jack remarked.

  “It would,” Joan agreed. “I shouldn’t alter anything, Jen. Write it out neatly and ask mother to tell you the proper address.”

  “The butler bully won’t be pleased,” said Jack.

  “That’s the only part I was doubtful about. But I should leave it in. The man seems to have been unfair to Timothy; Sir Keith may as well know.”

  “Ought I to begin ‘Sir Keith Marchwood’?” Jen asked anxiously. “That’s the part I wasn’t sure about.”

  “It isn’t right: ‘Sir Keith’ would be enough. But I like your way better, for you, Jenny-Wren. It fits the rest of the letter; don’t change it! He’ll know you aren’t used to writing to baronets.”

  “Sure it’s all right to leave it?” Jen hesitated. “I don’t want it to look silly.”

  “But you want him to like it, and you want him to know it really is from a girl and not dictated by a grown-up.”

  “Oh, rather! Yes, I see. Well, if it doesn’t look too mad I’ll leave it as it is.”

  “I should. Is the spelling mostly all right?”

  “Of course it’s all right!” Jen cried wrathfully. “I can spell! I’m not nine!”

  Joan laughed. “No, but you’re sometimes careless. I apologise!”

  “It’s O.K., Joan. I’ve read it,” Jack said.

  “You!” Jen gave a howl of wrath and turned to fling herself upon her.

  Joan disappeared from the window, and, with a laugh across at the nurse, retired to bed.

  “Joan’s gone!” Jack cried, as she fled, with Jen in close pursuit.

  Jen stopped and looked up at the window. She hurled a shout of defiance after Jack. “I’ll attend to you later, my girl! You’re a rotten speller. You wouldn’t know, if every single word was wrong!”

  She went back to the terrace and called loudly—“Joan! Can you hear? I’ll write my letter very beautifully and then I’ll post it. Sir Keith Marchwood will have it to-morrow morning, won’t he?”

  The nurse looked out. “That’s right. Now run away and don’t disturb my patient any more.”

  “Pig! I wasn’t. Joan likes being disturbed,” Jen said to herself, as she went indoors to set to work. “I shan’t bother them this afternoon, at any rate. I’ve other things to do!” And her eyes gleamed at the thought of her expedition.

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE BURGLARS

  “We’re going for a walk, Auntie Shirley,” Jen explained after dinner. “We won’t go near people; we’ll remember we may have germs inside us. We’ll go by the lane to the hills.”

  “Don’t tire yourselves by climbing up to the chalkpit,” Mrs. Shirley suggested. “It’s too hot for that.”

  “We won’t go all the way to the top,” Jen promised.

  They set out by the shrubbery path, which led to the hills, looking demure and law-abiding.

  “Nobody would think we were burglars,” Jack remarked. “I’m sure we don’t look it.”

  “Auntie Shirley’s such a dear, that I almost told her all about it. I hate keeping a secret from her.”

  “She’d have locked you up. You couldn’t expect her to approve of burglary.”

  “It isn’t burglary, if we don’t take anything. It’s breaking into a house. Of course, it is against the law, but I don’t suppose the caretaker would send for the police, even if she happened to catch us,” Jen said.

  “How can she, if she’s at her meeting?”

  “Might feel ill and come home early.”

  Jack grunted. “One chance in a million—like your portrait of K.M., wearing her locket! What time does the meeting start?”

  “Three o’clock. I asked Susie Spindle. Joan’s promised to make everybody call her Susie, so that she’ll feel more at home.”

  “Good business! You’re being a bene—what is it?—benefactor to the Spindle family, aren’t you? Doing quite a lot of good in the world, in your childish little way.”

  “Jacqueline Wilmot, I shall really have to ask if you can be sent home to-morrow,” Jen said sternly. “I shall have had quite enough of you by then. All I wanted you for was to have your company this afternoon, as I couldn’t have Joan.”

  “Joan! My good woman, Joan wouldn’t have come. She’d have squashed you as flat as a cockroach.”

  “Well, Joy, then. Joy would have loved it. I’m not going to put up with much more from you.”

  Jack laughed. “What do we do now? Here’s the lane.”

  “Here’s where we begin to trespass. These are the Marchwood grounds.”

  Jen opened a gate and led the way by a path through the field to the bank of a small lake. “Joy wishes she had a lake. See the island with the big tree? You get to it by that old punt. Oh, I’ve been across, of course; Joy took me. Even Auntie Shirley says there’s no harm in trespassing as far as this, if we don’t do any damage. But we’ve never gone through that second gate. That’s where you’re going now, husband.”

  “This is where the fun begins, then,” Jack agreed, as they slipped through the little gate into the orchard.

  “We’ll creep from tree to tree, in case there’s a gardener anywhere,” Jen spoke cautiously. “But we’ll keep close to the path, for it must lead somewhere.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be anybody about. Let’s scoot along the path and see where it takes us,” Jack suggested, growing impatient of their careful progress.

  “Here’s the end. Oh, look! It’s a tennis lawn. What a shame it isn’t kept in decent condition!”

  They stood beside another small gate, gazing at a lawn sunk between green banks. Beyond it stood the house, white and big and spreading—a homely, friendly house, with big windows, which were mostly shuttered on the lower floor.

  “So that’s the Manor,” Jen remarked. “Poor old house! It’s too bad to leave it shut up so long. Somebody ought to come and live in it.”

  “Who is there, if Sir Keith’s an invalid and his stepmother has to look after him, and one of the brothers is away exploring and the other lives in Africa?”

  “He ought to give up the farm in Kenya and come home.”

  “Oh, no, that would be silly!” Jack said. “It isn’t ever going to be his; why should he waste time on it? It will belon
g to the explorer chap when Sir Keith dies. You couldn’t ask the youngest one to stay at home and look after his brother’s property. Suppose Mr. Kenneth Marchwood wanted to get married? He must have a place of his own.”

  “They don’t seem to be a marrying family. Three men, and not one of them married!”

  “It’s most unsporting,” Jack said solemnly. “How are we poor girls ever going to get husbands?”

  “First time I’ve heard you say you wanted one!”

  “I don’t. It would cut short my career; I’m going in for medicine. But I’d like to see you safely off my hands,” Jack retorted.

  “Thanks awfully! I’m no keener than you are!”

  “You’re cut out for getting married and being properly domesticated,” Jack went on. “You’d take care of your husband and house and family beautifully. Of course, you’d boss the lot, but you’d do it quite kindly, and it would be for their good.”

  “Ass! I couldn’t be bothered. But I would like to see this old house lived in, with a jolly family, mostly boys, playing in the garden. Perhaps the explorer will settle down, once it belongs to him, and find somebody who’ll marry him and live here with him.”

  “In the meantime, how do you propose to get into the house?” Jack demanded. “You didn’t come here just to look at the outside, I suppose?”

  Jen eyed the shutters in despair. “Doesn’t it look hopeless? I didn’t think there would be shutters. I meant to push back the catch of a window with my knife, like burglars do.”

  Jack snorted. “Know all about the ways of burglars, don’t you?”

  “I can guess; and I’ve read about them. Let’s try the shutters. There might be one loose somewhere.”

  Unhopefully, Jack went with her, skirting the lawn warily and keeping in the shelter of the trees. They pushed and pulled at one after another of the shutters, but without success.

  “It’s being properly looked after,” Jen said. “No—here, Jack! This one’s a bit groggy.”

  Jack leapt to her side and they pulled together. The shutter shook and then the unsteady catch gave way and it fell open, so suddenly that they both reeled back.