Stowaways in the Abbey

by Elsie J. Oxenham

  Joan laughed. “No, Jenny-Wren. But I can’t wait another moment to know what all this means about pictures. Susie didn’t tell me much. Won’t you explain the whole thing?”

  Jen’s lips quivered. “Joan, I did want to tell you myself. I’ve been thinking about it for almost a week—ever since last Wednesday. It was the day Joy began to be so ill. We haven’t seen you since. I’ve thought of nothing else.”

  “I know,” Joan spoke with real sympathy. “I’m terribly sorry your surprise for me has been ruined. But I’m certain Susie meant no harm; she just didn’t understand. I don’t really know all about it yet. I’m longing to hear the whole story.”

  “Jack and I went to the Manor,” Jen said hurriedly, her eyes lowered lest, looking at Joan, she should break down. There was no pleasure in her telling; all the joy had been taken away. But it was necessary to satisfy Joan and persuade her to go indoors before the wind grew cold.

  “To the Manor? But what made you think there might be pictures of the Abbey at the Manor?”

  “We didn’t go about the pictures. We went to look for family portraits of the Marchwoods. I thought there might be one of Kitty Marchwood, wearing my locket. I wanted to know if it was really hers; to prove it somehow.” Jen shot a shy look up at Joan, whose eyes had widened in puzzled wonder.

  “You monkey!” Joan exclaimed. “You hadn’t any right to do that!”

  “We didn’t do any harm,” Jen urged. “But Sir Keith Marchwood turned up, to look for some important papers in his library——”

  “Sir Keith himself? And he caught you? You deserved it! Tell me what happened!” Joan demanded in breathless interest. “Susie didn’t know anything about all this!”

  “He didn’t catch us. We rushed away and came safely home. But we’d found a picture, and she was wearing the locket——”

  “You really found a picture of Kitty?” Joan cried. “Sorry to keep interrupting your story, but it is so surprising, Jenny-Wren!”

  “She was Katharine Marchwood, and she married our Peregrine and came to live here. We told Joy, when she spoke to us at the window, but I expect she forgot or thought she’d dreamt it. I know!” as Joan began to remonstrate: “the dates are all wrong; she was two hundred years before the Katharine who was robbed by the highwayman. The locket was given back when the first Katharine died; and it was handed down in the family, till it was stolen and lost. Sir Keith told us all that.”

  “You’ve taken my breath away!” Joan exclaimed. “I thought it was about Abbey pictures you were going to tell me!”

  “That comes later. You see”—Jen glanced up at her—“when we’d run away and were safely in the garden, I began to think, and I felt I couldn’t keep the locket, now that I knew for certain it really did belong to the Marchwoods. I couldn’t, could I, Joan?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Joan agreed. “What did you do?”

  “I fetched it and the purse and we went back, and I gave them to Sir Keith.”

  “You really did?” Joan’s eyes gleamed in admiration. “That was jolly decent of you, Jenny-Wren! Weren’t you frightened?”

  “A bit,” Jen admitted. “Because, of course, we had been in the house, though we hadn’t burgled or done any harm, except breaking the rotten catch of one shutter. He quite understood, and he said he wouldn’t send for the police. The caretaker and the valet had been raving about the police and calling us burglars.”

  “I expect you felt bad, didn’t you? How I wish I’d been there!” Joan’s face was full of amusement.

  “He was terribly kind. He said I might keep the locket and the purse as long as I wanted them, but after I die they must go back to the Marchwood family, in case there are some girls by that time. There aren’t any just now. So I made my will.” Jen shot another shy glance up at Joan.

  “You did? On the spot?” Joan gave a shout of laughter. “Oh, splendid, Jenny-Wren! What did you say?”

  “I’ll show you, later on. I kept a copy, but it’s upstairs. Jack and Sir Keith witnessed it.”

  “It was quite proper, Joan,” Jack had followed Jen. “He kept it in exchange for the locket.”

  “I expect Sir Keith enjoyed himself,” Joan remarked. “I shall have to be told this story again! There’s too much to take in all at once. Hurry on to the pictures, Jenny-Wren! Where do they come in?”

  “He told us to look in the drawing-room, if we’d like to see something that would interest us. And there, Joan”—Jen looked up eagerly at last, and even in her keen excitement Joan rejoiced to see that the joy which Susie had killed had come back—“there, hanging on the walls, were pictures of a lovely church—one of the outside and one inside. I rushed to him to ask if it could be the Abbey church, and he told us the story.” And she described breathlessly how the pictures had come to be painted.

  Joan’s face was radiant. “Then they’re real! I didn’t see how they could be. I was afraid they would be only imaginary pictures, some artist’s fancy of what the church might have been like.”

  “Oh, they’re real! Ambrose saw them, and they were done from his descriptions. They aren’t made-up things.”

  “I’m aching to see them!” Joan exclaimed. “I hope Sir Keith will let me go in to look. You told him how much I should want to see them, didn’t you?”

  Jack looked at Jen expectantly. But no wild outburst of excitement came. Jen was still exhausted by shock and disappointment.

  “Oh, he’s going to give them to you—to the Abbey. He’ll send them as soon as we ask for them, but while Joy was so ill we thought we’d better wait. They’re to hang in the refectory.”

  “Really?” Joan’s eyes blazed in delight. “Oh, that’s marvellous of him! How very kind! They’ll be our greatest treasures; it’s what we’ve always longed to have.”

  “I told him that. I said they ought to be in the Abbey, not hidden at the Manor.”

  “Jen, you didn’t! Did you really? But what cheek, kid!”

  “Of course I did. I had to get them for you somehow, and it was true anyway. He said he’d often thought so himself, but he didn’t like Sir Antony and so he didn’t give them to him. But if the present owner of the Abbey would like to have them, he’d send them; and I said you jolly well would!”

  “I should think so indeed! ‘Like to have them’! There’s nothing in the world I’d like so much! You seem to have had a busy day last Wednesday!”

  “And then we came home, and there was Joy, hanging out of the window catching pneumonia!” said Jack. “I said it was risky, but she wouldn’t go in till we’d told her about Katharine being married to Peregrine.”

  “Joan, oughtn’t you to go in now?” Jen asked anxiously. “We’ve told you the important bits. We’ll tell you more about it to-morrow, and when you’re out of quarantine you shall see my will. Haven’t you enough to think about for to-day? It would be awful if you caught cold.”

  “We couldn’t stand all that worry over again,” Jack added.

  Joan laughed. “It won’t happen to me! I’m practically all right; don’t worry! But I will go in. Just tell me what the church is like, Jenny-Wren!”

  “Oh, gorgeous! Huge!” Jack said.

  Joan looked at Jen. “Can’t you do better than that?”

  Jen gave her a quick look. “Very plain and dignified, Joan; no ornaments—real Cistercian, and early, not like the refectory. Decorated windows—beautiful patterns—no stained glass. A low bell-tower in the middle; I’m so glad there was a bell! The pillars inside are Early English, with lancet windows high up; all very white and simple. I can’t remember much more, but it was the sort of church you’d want to say your prayers in, not a place just for show.”

  Joan’s face was radiant as she took in the points of the description. “Thank you, Jenny-Wren! You’ve learnt your lessons well in the Abbey. It sounds just what I’d have expected the church to be like. How soon can we have the pictures, do you think?”

  “I could write to Sir Keith, now at once. I asked him not
to send them while Joy was so ill.”

  “Oh, will you?” Joan cried. “Oh, marvellous! Now I’m going in to rest and think about those pictures; and after tea I shall tell Mother and Joy all the story!”

  CHAPTER XXVI

  SUSIE IN TROUBLE

  “So Susie hadn’t told Joan all about it, after all,” Jack said, as Jen turned to go indoors.

  “I’m going to write that letter,” was Jen’s only answer. “Then you could post it in town this evening. It might go a little sooner; he simply must have it first thing to-morrow.”

  When the letter was ready it was time for tea. “Our last meal together till next week!” Jack said gloomily. “With luck, I’ll see you at school on Monday, but if either of us comes out in spots it will be two weeks longer. Don’t do it, if you love me, wife!”

  “Not a bit likely. We’re both all right.”

  “You’re not,” Jack eyed her keenly. “You aren’t your usual noisy self. What’s up? You aren’t going to be ill, are you? Is it just gloom because you’re going to lose me?”

  “Don’t be an ass! I’m sorry you’re going, of course, but I’ve a rotten headache as well.”

  “Better tell Nurse!” Jack exclaimed hopefully. “If you’re going to have measles, I may as well stay here.”

  “It isn’t measles.”

  “What is it, then? Couldn’t you produce a temperature, just to oblige me?” Jack pleaded.

  “I don’t want to talk. I’m dead tired.”

  Suddenly Jack remembered that half-hour in the shrubbery. “It’s not measles. It’s that little pig Susie. Poor old Jen’s done in,” she said to herself. “Sooner I go the better. She’ll have to get over it by herself.” She looked up. “Ring me in the morning, to say you’re all right, old thing! I don’t like leaving you looking like a piece of string.”

  “I’m all right, only tired. Don’t fuss, Jack! We’ve had a marvellous week. Let’s talk of all the jolly things we’ve done!”

  Jack adopted the idea with enthusiasm, and chattered of picnics and cricket and tramps on the hills, till the sound of her father’s car at the door sent her rushing to fetch her coat and suitcase. Then she was gone, and Jen stood alone on the terrace, waving good-bye.

  She turned to the Abbey path. “I shall go and talk to the cats, as I did before Jack came. Here comes Mrs. Watson! I wonder what she wants?”

  She waited on the lawn till the caretaker reached her.

  “What’s up, Mrs. Watson? Is it a message for Joan?”

  “For somebody,” the caretaker said grimly. “That there Susie Spindle is in the Abbey and I can’t—my goodness!”

  Jen had gone, into the house and up to her room. She locked the door and flung herself on her bed.

  All her feeling for the Abbey, all her love for Joan, were jarred and out of tune. She was not old enough to analyse and understand what she felt. She was heartbroken and she had to be alone. Not even Joan could have comforted her.

  “Everything’s spoiled. I can’t even go into the Abbey. Oh, why did I tell that horrible girl?” she sobbed.

  Mrs. Watson stared after her, then shook her head and hurried to the house. “Another of ’em! I don’t know what to make of these here kids. Cook! What’s your Susie been a-doin’ of?”

  “That’s what I want to know!” Cook said heatedly. “I sent her to pick fruit for my jam, and a full hour and a half ago it was, and she’s never come back. I’ll Susie her, when I see her!”

  “I’ve got her,” Ann Watson explained. “In the Abbey she is, and cryin’ fit to bust herself. Came rushing in some time ago, and dived down into the old church, and there she lays, a-cryin’ her heart out. I can’t do nothing with her; she won’t listen to a word I says. So I comes here to ask what’s up, and little Miss Jen’s in the garden, and as soon as I says, ‘That there Susie Spindle is in the Abbey,’ that very minute Miss Jen rushes away from me like a wild thing. It’s too much for the likes of me. What’s the matter with them all?”

  Cook shrugged her shoulders. “Miss Jack’s gone home. Perhaps Miss Jen’s upset about that. You send Susie to me and I’ll give her what for. Keeping back my jam like this!”

  “I tell you I can’t do it,” Mrs. Watson protested. “I can’t do nothing with the child. She just cries and lays there like a lump.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Grace came to listen, her eyes wide.

  “Can’t tell you that. I asked her, and she said, ‘Miss Jen said—she said——’ and then she turned on the taps again and cried a heap more.”

  “Shouldn’t have thought Miss Jen would scrap with Susie,” Grace said. “She’s been good to the child, that she has.”

  “You try Susie again, Mrs. Watson, there’s a good soul,” Cook suggested. “Tell her as how I’m waiting for them rasps. Say I’ll be real mad with her if I don’t have ’em soon.”

  “Better say it’ll be all right if you gets ’em quick,” Grace said wisely. “That’s more likely to bring her back.”

  “You say that, then,” Cook assented. “Tell her if she comes back at once I’ll say no more about it, seeing as how something’s upset her.”

  “It won’t be any use, but I’ll try,” Mrs. Watson said doubtfully, and departed on her quest.

  The time passed, but Susie did not appear. At dusk Mrs. Watson came from the Abbey again.

  “No good,” she reported to Cook. “That girl was crying herself sick, and she said she’d never come back to the house, so I’ve made her come up out of t’old church and lie on the bed her brother had, and she’s sleeping like a log. Pity he’s gone back to London! He might have talked some sense to her. I thought she might have come to her wits by the morning. She’d be no manner o’ use to you just now.”

  “You done well,” Cook agreed. “We’ll tell the mistress in the morning; pity to worrit her at night, and her not too strong yet. Perhaps they’d let me speak to Miss Joan. You keep that Susie where she is until to-morrow, Mrs. Watson. Lock the door on her; we don’t want her ramping over the country, saying as how we’ve been cruel to her.”

  “Cruel! Goodness me, who’s been cruel?” Grace cried. “Look how kind Miss Jen was about her brother!”

  “Clean off her head, if you ask me,” Mrs. Watson said. “But I can tell you this—whatever’s gone wrong, it’s something to do with Miss Jen. That’s the only word Susie will say—‘Miss Jen’s mad with me.’ Has Miss Jen said anything to you?”

  “Gone to bed with a headache,” Cook explained. “Grace took up some supper, but she didn’t eat it all. I guess she’d been crying too.”

  “I don’t know what’s taken them both. Let’s leave them alone till the morning. I’ll lock Susie in, and a very good idea, for which I thank you, Cook,” and Mrs. Watson went off to lock the door of the little room, leaving milk and biscuits by Susie’s side in case she woke.

  Before breakfast Grace went through the garden to the Abbey. “Any luck this morning?” she asked, putting her head in at Mrs. Watson’s door.

  “Bad as ever,” Ann retorted. “I been and talked to her. She wishes she was dead and she’s never going back to the house. Miss Jen hates her and won’t ever speak to her again, and Susie wants to die.”

  “Lord sakes! Doesn’t sound like Miss Jen. What’s Susie been doing?”

  “Wouldn’t tell me. Like to try your hand at her? There’s the key.”

  Grace took the key doubtfully. “I’m not much good with kiddies.”

  She unlocked the door and stood looking down at Susie. At her entrance Susie started up, wild-eyed and with swollen crimson face. Then with a sob she crouched on the bed again and buried her head in the pillow.

  “There now, Susie! What’s all this about? Nobody’s going to eat you,” Grace remonstrated. “You come home along o’ me, and we’ll say no more about it.”

  Susie was incoherent by this time. “Miss Jen, she said—I told Miss Joan—I never meant no harm. I’ll never come—I couldn’t bear it—I’d rather die. Miss Jen hates
me; I spoiled her secret. I didn’t know; I’d die to please Miss Jen! She’ll never speak to me again.”

  “That isn’t like Miss Jen. Whatever did you do?” Grace exclaimed.

  Susie shook and sobbed, and would say no more.

  Grace locked the door and went back to Mrs. Watson.

  “No good. Nothing to be done here. That girl’s going to be ill, if something doesn’t stop her soon. We’ll have to tell them at the house.”

  “You ask Miss Joan. She’ll know what to do,” Ann Watson said. “She knows about girls, what with being May Queen and all.”

  “Miss Joy was a queen too.”

  “Aye, but Miss Jen thinks a mighty lot of Miss Joan,” Mrs. Watson said. “If they can talk to her at the window you can.”

  Grace went soberly away to report to Cook and to demand from Nurse an interview with Joan as soon as possible.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  LETTING DOWN THE ABBEY

  Joan, sitting on the window-sill in the sunshine, heard Grace’s story and looked grave. “I know what’s happened, and I can see how Susie feels. I’ll talk to Jen; she’s the one who must put things right. Where is she, Grace?”

  “Gone out, Miss Joan. She had a stick and she took her lunch. Said she was going on the hills.”

  “Up the Monks’ Path to the cave, I expect. Keep a look-out for her, Grace, and tell her I want to speak to her as soon as she comes in. I should leave Susie alone for the present. Ask Mrs. Watson to see that she has her meals; and I think—yes, I’m afraid you’ll have to keep her locked in, just for to-day. In that state she might run away, and we don’t want that to happen.”

  “I’ll tell Mrs. Watson, Miss Joan. Susie’s cried herself nearly ill; I don’t believe she could run far, even if she thought of it,” Grace said.

  “Poor kiddy! I’m sorry for Jen, too. I wish I could go after her, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t be allowed.” Joan frowned in anxious thought. “Well, thank you, Grace. I hope we’ll put things right soon. It’s awkward for you all, and it’s sad for Jen and Susie. We must help them, if we can. Ask Mrs. Watson to be good to Susie; it isn’t really her fault—she didn’t understand, and she’s desperately unhappy. Tell her we’re trying to help.”