Selma at the Abbey

by Elsie J. Oxenham

  CHAPTER 3

  AN APPEAL TO THE ABBEY

  “But the girl is too young, Joan!” Mrs. Shirley protested, when Joan, in her bedroom, was explaining the position.

  “I’m not so sure of that, Mother dear.” Joan sat on the bed and spoke earnestly. “Nowadays girls seem to start that sort of thing very early. I think it’s a pity, but they will do it; I remember how the seniors at school used to talk. It never appealed to Joy or me; we weren’t in a hurry to grow up, but a great many girls are. Angus says Selma isn’t thinking like that, but I don’t see how he can tell. Girls can think a lot without saying much.”

  “She must know that his feeling for her is more than mere friendship. He is really in earnest, I suppose?”

  “I’m sure he is. Make him talk about her to you, and you’ll think so too. He means it very deeply. How much Selma understands is another matter.”

  “It depends on the sort of girl she is,” Mrs. Shirley said. “In any case she would be better away from Angus for a while. It would give him time to make sure of himself, and she may be able to adjust her mind and to find out what she really feels. We must help them, Joan. The child had better come here.”

  “Yes,” Joan agreed. “We can’t turn down Angus’s appeal. He has come to us for help.”

  “To the Abbey.” Mrs. Shirley smiled at her, with full understanding of Joan’s feeling in the matter. “Angus wants sanctuary for his distressed sweetheart and he has come to the Abbey for help.”

  “Mother, how lovely of you! It makes it sound like an ancient romance. The Abbey must welcome the lady-love and protect her.”

  “And educate her,” Mrs. Shirley added. “One can understand how the boy feels. He is ambitious, and we believe he will succeed. But his girl-friend must grow up along with him; he can’t leave her behind.”

  “In a shop,” Joan added. “As he says, she must learn to meet people. She’s probably terribly shy.”

  “But it depends on you,” Mrs. Shirley warned her. “We can’t count much on Joy. You were willing to cope with Rykie, but she was your cousin. Will you take on the job of this new girl?”

  “With help from Jen, which is what I said about Rykie,” Joan said promptly. “Jen is almost Selma’s age; she will be a companion for her. That is Angus’s idea; he seems to think a lot of Jenny-Wren. I am sure Selma should go to school, for a while, at least.”

  “Has she been to a good school, do you think?”

  “Aren’t all schools good in Scotland?” Joan laughed. “I’m sure she has; Angus sounded proud when he said she had been to school in Glasgow, not merely in her village. But I don’t expect a little more French and maths will hurt her. You’d be willing to have Jen here again, if we can arrange it, Mother? Then they could be friends, and they’d go to school together every day.”

  “You know I am always glad to have Jen here. She feels like one of us; not a visitor, in the least.”

  “One of the family. Joy and I feel that too, and yet we’ve only known her for two years. It will make things much jollier for Selma, if Jen is here. Come and see Angus, Mother, and make him talk about his lassie!”

  As Mrs. Shirley welcomed the guest and he looked into her gentle eyes, Angus knew again that this was what he wanted for Selma—to live with people like these and to learn their way of life. He tried to put the thought into words, as he sat by his hostess.

  “If Selma could be with people like you, and Miss Joan and Miss Joy and little Miss Jen! There are lots o’ folks I’d no’ care for her to be with, but here you’ve got something—I don’t know what it is or how to say it, but it’s what I want for Selma.”

  Embarrassed and shy, he sprang up and came to the table, where Joan was attending to cups. “She’s no’ got anything to eat. Will I take these cakes to her?”

  He saw a gleam in Joy’s eyes and knew he had done the right thing. Joan looked pleased, too, he thought, as she suggested bread and butter and handed him the plate. Angus made a mental note, and thereafter he waited on Mrs. Shirley carefully.

  “Social education!” Joy said to herself. “Good for Angus too. He isn’t used to afternoon tea. But he’s doing it quite neatly.”

  Mrs. Shirley listened with attentive sympathy as Angus, in answer to her questions, talked about Selma, while Joan drew Joy into conversation.

  “We would like to help your little friend,” Mrs. Shirley said, when tea was over. “But it needs some arrangement. We must see if Jen Robins can be spared to us again, and that does not depend only on us. We will think over the matter carefully and see what can be done.”

  “Are you staying in London, or are you going back to Glasgow, Angus?” Joan asked.

  “Back to Glasgow, Miss Joan. I found a chap to take my place with the dance orchestra, but only for two nights.”

  “Then you’d better get along, if you’re catching the night train. We’ll write to you in a day or two. And you might leave your Selma’s address with us, in case we need to write to her for any reason.”

  “Funny way to spell Andersson,” Joy commented, when Angus had obeyed. “Swedish, I suppose! Shall I run you in to Wycombe station? It will save you time and trouble,” and she went to get out the car.

  “We might call at school and have a talk with the Head,” Joan said, as they set out.

  “On the way home,” Joy agreed. “The Head is the important one. Jenny-Wren’s mother will always let her come to us. She thinks you’re such a good influence for a growing girl.”

  “Ass!” said Joan indignantly.

  Angus looked wistful. “Selma’s a growing girl, too, Miss Joan.”

  Joan laughed. “And you want us to adopt her?”

  “Aye, just that. She’d be a different girl.”

  “Is she as bad as all that?” Joy asked. “It sounds terrible.”

  “That’s no’ what I mean.” Angus struggled to explain himself. “There’s nothing—she’s a good lass, but——”

  “Joy’s only teasing, Angus. Don’t listen to her.”

  “Oh!” and Angus sat silent, pondering.

  As they reached the town he began stumblingly to thank them, but Joan cut him short.

  “Not yet, Angus. Even if Selma comes to us she may not want to stay. We can’t keep her against her will. She may not like us! The most we can do is to invite her to stay with us for a while and see how we get on together. If we can help her we will. That’s all we can say at present.”

  Angus still struggled to express his thanks, but they checked him and left him to find his train, and Joy drove off to the big school on the outskirts of the town.

  As they entered the building, confident that, as it was still early, Miss Macey would not have gone home, they heard music coming from the hall.

  “Dancing?” Joy raised her brows. “Jenny-Wren will be there.”

  “Singing,” Joan said. “But I think Jen will be—yes, listen, Joy!”

  The sound of children’s voices came through a half-open door. The Abbey Girls looked at one another and laughed, and paused to peer through the glass panels of the door.

  Small girls and boys were walking round in a big ring, singing lustily, “When I was a schoolgirl,” and acting the song, some bending over imaginary books, some apparently in tears over difficult lessons. The verse changed to, “When I was a teacher,” and with great gusto they scolded and shook their fingers at one another.

  Two girls were watching them; one was a tall dark senior; the other, also tall, was fifteen, with blue eyes and hair worn in two thick yellow plaits.

  “Jen’s practice night, with her babies,” Joy murmured. “I wondered if she’d go on with it, now the show is over. She is a brick!”

  “She didn’t do it for the show,” Joan remarked. “The show was an afterthought. She loves it, and she wouldn’t want to give it up. But who is the other girl? She’s new since our time.”

  “I know who she is and I’m jolly glad to have the chance to speak to her,” Joy said. “Don’t you recognise
her? She’s Aileen Carter, who was such a perfect sport about giving up her part as Jaques, when our rotten little Rykie bagged it.” And she pushed open the door and strode into the room.

  CHAPTER 4

  ALLIES AT SCHOOL

  With a wild whoop, Jen leapt across the hall. “Joan! Oh, Joan, have you come to ask me to tea on Saturday?”

  Joy went over to the other girl. “You are Aileen, aren’t you? I wanted to speak to you at the fête in July, but there were such mobs of people that I didn’t think you’d like it. I say, you know, you were most awfully decent about that play last term!”

  Aileen coloured. “I’m glad you didn’t speak of it at the fête. What else could I do? Your cousin made a much better Jaques than I should have done.”

  “Not my cousin, thanks be! Joan’s relation; nothing to do with me! I know; she was jolly good. But all the same it was your part and the way she grabbed it was simply foul. You could have hung on to it quite well. It had been given to you.”

  “I couldn’t do that, when everybody knew she’d do it better than I ever should. Please don’t talk about it any more! I couldn’t do anything else.”

  “I won’t keep on. But I’m glad to have the chance to say I think you were an absolute brick over the whole business.”

  Aileen reddened again. “It’s nice of you. My cousin Carry seems to have had a big row with you, but that’s nothing to do with me. Thank you, Miss Shirley.”

  “Oh, Carry and I used to fight no end. But that was because I didn’t like her little ways. As you say, it’s nothing to do with us. There’s one of the family I like a jolly lot, and that’s you. Were you watching Jen’s class?” Joy changed the subject, for Aileen was looking uncomfortable.

  “She wanted to give the kids an easy dance, so I said I’d play for her. They’ve been doing ‘Butterfly’; she taught it jolly well. But they like the games better.”

  “The actions, and the singing. Yes, they would, at their age. Piano or violin?”

  “Piano,” Aileen smiled. “I wish I was a fiddler, but I’m not.”

  “Well, I say! Come to see us one day and try my piano; it’s rather special and I love it. We’ll discuss Chopin and Schubert, and Joan will show you the Abbey. We’ll arrange a day; can I ring you up?”

  As Aileen gave her number her eyes were glowing and a quick thought shot through her mind. This was what Carry, her cousin, had wanted; to be invited to the Hall and the Abbey on terms of friendship. Carry had been Joy’s maid-of-honour, when Joy had been May Queen, having failed in her ambition to be Queen herself. But a serious quarrel had put friendship out of the question; Joy had never relented and had shown plainly that she was not prepared to accept Carry even as an acquaintance, when they had both left school.

  “Carry will rave with envy,” Aileen said to herself. “But I shall go, if I’m really asked. I wonder what she did to upset Joy Shirley so badly? But she won’t tell me. She’ll try to go with me, if I go, but I shall see that she doesn’t.”

  “Perhaps you could do something for us presently,” Joy said, thinking hard. “I don’t know yet, but if certain things happen we may ask you to help. Will you do it?”

  “If I can,” Aileen laughed. “What sort of thing?”

  “Oh, just to be friendly to somebody. But it isn’t arranged yet.”

  “I’ll try, Miss Shirley.”

  “Nice to know we can ask you! We can depend on Jen, but two friends are better than one.”

  “Is another Rykie coming to stay with you? Jen says she’s in Hollywood now. She’ll love it.”

  “It’s the right place for her,” Joy assented. “Not another Rykie, we hope, but perhaps somebody else. You’ll hear about it later, if it comes off.”

  Joan was laughing across at Jen. “To ask you to tea? Why should we ask you to tea? We’ve come to call on the Head.”

  “She’s in her study. You often have asked me on the first Saturday of term,” Jen urged. “I want to see the Abbey and the cats and Aunty Shirley. Is she all right?”

  “Third in importance to the Abbey and the cats! She’s quite well and really stronger. I’m very proud of her.”

  “I am glad! Living at the Abbey is being good for her. I didn’t really mean that she mattered less than the cats! How horrid of you, Joan!”

  “Forgive me! I was only ragging,” Joan laughed. “If we ask you to tea, will you come?”

  “I’ll always come! You know that quite well.”

  “No dancing or matches on Saturday afternoon?”

  “Only hockey practice, and I’m no good at hockey. They’ll let me off.”

  “You don’t try very hard over hockey, do you?”

  “I don’t try at all,” Jen said candidly. “I don’t like it, and I don’t want it to butt in and spoil my dancing for the whole winter. Cricket’s bad enough; I won’t take on hockey as well.”

  “What does Jack say about that?”

  For more than two years Jacqueline had been Jen’s close friend among the girls of her own age. A keen cricketer, she had tried to draw Jen away from the Hamlet Club and its dancing, for the sake of the cricket team, and had succeeded at times, during the summer.

  “Jack’s got to put up with me and she knows it. She’s good at hockey; she’s good at everything to do with games. But she says it’s too late to make me keen now; I ought to have begun years ago.”

  “I dare say that’s true. I’m glad you’ve started again with your children. Have they forgotten everything since July?”

  “A good lot, and we’ve crowds of new ones. But they’ll soon pick up again. I tried them with ‘Butterfly,’ but they like the games best.”

  “Stick to the games, then. You carry on, while we go and talk to the Head.”

  “You are going to ask me, aren’t you?” Jen said anxiously.

  “For sure, Jenny-Wren. But we must ask Miss Macey first.”

  Jen was dismissing her children, and Aileen had gone home, when Joan came back to the hall.

  “Joy’s seeing to the car. It’s more than an invitation to tea, Jenny-Wren. Will you come to us for the week-end?”

  Jen gave a shout. “Will I? Oh, Joan, you angel! How I’ll love it! I never like the first Sunday at school awfully much; I miss Mother and Father when there’s more time to think. But a Sunday at the Abbey is always a joyful occasion. You are jolly kind to think of it!”

  “I didn’t think of it quite like that,” Joan admitted. “We knew you’d be willing to come, but——”

  “Willing! Joan-Queen, how can you? You know how I love to come!”

  “But we weren’t thinking particularly of your point of view this time. We want you to do something for us. No, I can’t tell you about it now; it’s time we were home. But you shall hear all about it to-morrow afternoon; Joy will fetch you.”

  “I’ll do anything! Is it something hard, Joan? I’d like to do something really hard for you.”

  “I don’t suppose it will be hard at all. But I can’t tell you any more now. You can dream about it all night.”

  “Oh, I shall! I sha’n’t sleep a wink.”

  “Don’t be silly!” Joan said severely, and went off to join Joy in the car.

  CHAPTER 5

  A JOYFUL OCCASION

  “Now tell me all about it!” Jen had kissed Mrs. Shirley and greeted the cats, and had arranged cushions for herself and Joan outside the door of the chapter-house, where the afternoon sun shone full upon them. “I didn’t ask Joy, in the car, and she didn’t say anything,” she added. “You’d said you would tell me, so I waited for you.”

  “Joy’s full of a new tune. She says she dreamt it and now she has to work it out.”

  “I thought she looked a bit dreamy. I shall ask her to play it to me. Isn’t this really a joyful occasion, as I said, Joan? It’s lovely to be here with you again!”

  “It’s a very serious occasion,” Joan warned her.

  Jen gave her a quick look. “Nothing can make it less joyful for me. But tell
me, Joan! I’m dying to hear.”

  The stout black cat, the Mother Superior, came pacing across the garth, tail very erect, and laid a large soft paw on Jen’s knee; then changed her mind and went to Joan, and did the same thing, looking up into her face.

  Jen thrust her into Joan’s lap. “Joan’s your missus. I’ll have Timmy. Come on, Shaggy-Mat! Now settle down and be happy, for we want to talk.” She stroked the long gray locks which Timmy wore and looked eagerly at Joan. The third cat, the Curate, aloof as usual, glanced at them and went off for a lonely prowl.

  “We had a visitor yesterday.” Joan fondled the Mother Superior, and plunged into the story. “We took him to the station before we came to school to see you. Guess who it was!”

  “I couldn’t possibly.” Jen stared at her wide-eyed. “You said ‘him.’ Joan, you couldn’t mean—it couldn’t have been—no, it simply couldn’t!”

  “I don’t call that guessing nicely at all! I fancy you’re getting warm, all the same.”

  “Not Angus?” Jen gasped.

  “Yes, Angus. He came to ask us to help him.”

  “But what ghastly cheek! After all you did for him! How could he, Joan?”

  “He was very humble about it, but he wanted something and he was quite sure we could do it for him, if we would.”

  “And will you? You never say no, do you? Joy does, sometimes, but not you.”

  “We talked it over last night. We’ll try to help, but only if you’ll back us up.”

  “Me? Oh, Joan dear, don’t talk silly! What can I do? What did Angus want?”

  “Angus has a girl-friend and he wants to help her. He can’t do it alone; he’s right there. He wondered if we’d lend a hand.”

  “Well, that’s a relief to my mind!” Jen said fervently. “You mean there’s a girl he wants to marry? That’s all right! I was afraid he might want Joy, or even you.”

  “Gracious, Jen! What put that into your head?”