Selma at the Abbey

by Elsie J. Oxenham

  “What about Angus?” Selma demanded.

  Joan glanced at her. “He’ll be better soon. Don’t break your heart, my dear.”

  “But what does the doctor say?” Selma pleaded.

  “He has slight concussion and a broken rib and a badly bruised side. All things that will mend in time. As for his arm”—she paused, and they gazed at her in breathless anxiety—“it’s a very bad break; but it will mend.”

  “He’ll be able to use it?” Joy cried.

  Selma just looked at Joan, her eyes wide with fear.

  “Go on, Joan!” Jen urged. “He’ll be able to fiddle, won’t he?”

  “We hope so.” Joan chose her words carefully. “It’s early to say; Dr. Brown won’t promise too much. He’ll be able to use his arm for ordinary things, and it may get completely strong again. We’ll do everything possible for him. He may have to go to hospital for treatment as soon as he can be moved.”

  “Oh, rot! We’ll nurse him here,” Joy exclaimed.

  “Not if the hospital would be better for him,” Joan said firmly. “His complete recovery is the thing we want. We’ll do everything to ensure that.”

  “But you think perhaps he won’t be able to play?” Selma’s voice broke in a sob.

  Joan went to her quickly and took her in her arms. “The doctor won’t promise, my dear, but I’m quite sure he will,” she said, gently but with great and comforting conviction.

  CHAPTER 27

  ANNOUNCING AN ENGAGEMENT

  The house was very quiet. The girls sat together, waiting for the doctor to appear.

  He came into the lighted library at last. “All’s well. Is that tea? Good! Give me a cup.”

  “We’ll make some fresh for you,” Joan began.

  “No, it will do. Bad for me, no doubt, but I’ll risk it, if it’s hot. Where’s your phone? I’ll send in a nurse for a day or two, till we see how things are going. But I think it will mean hospital for a time.”

  “Let him stay here, if you can,” Joan pleaded.

  “The phone’s no use,” Joy said. “They cut the wire. But——”

  “But you phoned me?”

  “Yes, from the Abbey. I’ll take you there. Joan, if the police come before I’m back you can keep them amused. You’d better get dressed.”

  “I was going to sit with Angus.”

  “Let Selma do that. She wants to be with him.”

  “Oh yes, please! I must be with him.”

  “Selma?” The doctor looked questioningly at her.

  “Selma is staying with us. Mr. Reekie and she are friends,” Joan explained.

  Dr. Brown’s eyes asked a question. Selma, standing eager and frightened, was so very pretty, with dark curls tumbled wildly and falling on her red gown, but so very young.

  “We’re going to be married—some day,” she said with a gasp.

  Joy gave a grunt of amusement. “Odd time to announce your engagement!”

  “Of course they’ll be married, when Selma’s old enough!” Jen cried.

  Joan’s arm slipped round Selma. “It’s understood, isn’t it, Selma? But it had better not be a real engagement until you are seventeen.”

  Dr. Brown gave an exclamation. “Not seventeen yet, young lady? You’ve plenty of time. Get the boy well again and then you can think about it. He’s a lucky fellow to have such a pretty girl waiting for him. You must nurse him carefully. Swedish, eh?”

  “My father was, but not my mother. I—we—come from Scotland.”

  “Swedish-Scottish! A good mixture, I should say. Well, take care of that lad. If he wakes, don’t let him talk. Show me your second phone, Miss Joy. A good thing you had it put in the Abbey.”

  They went off together, and Joan took command in the library. “Jen and Selma, go and sit with Angus till I come. There’s nothing to do, but someone should be there. If he seems to be waking, call me. I must speak to Mother and then dress. I’ll send Annie to bed, and the others too.”

  Jen and Selma, delighted, ran quietly upstairs and sat close together, gazing at Angus.

  His head and arm were bandaged, and he lay still and white.

  “He looks as if he’s dead,” Selma whispered, trembling.

  “Oh, but he isn’t!” Jen put her arm round her. “He’ll wake up soon. You did mean what you said, didn’t you? I’d like you to be married to Angus. You’d take care of him so beautifully.”

  “I didn’t know—I didn’t understand—till I thought he was dead,” Selma sobbed. “I want him to belong to me in earnest. Aye, I’ll be married to him as soon as he’s better. I could no’ live without him; I know that now.”

  “When’s your birthday? Will you be seventeen soon? Joan seemed to think you ought to be seventeen.”

  “In February.”

  “Oh, good! He’ll be better by then, and he can give you a ring and you’ll be properly engaged.”

  “And if he’s no’ able to fiddle, we’ll do some other job, the two of us.”

  “Rather! Of course you will. But I’m sure he’ll be able to play.”

  Selma shivered. Jen patted her hand gently and they sat quietly, waiting.

  Joan came in after a while. “Mother’s all right, and she’s going to sleep. Selma and I will stay here till the nurse comes. Jen dear, I’d like you to go to bed.”

  Jen looked mutinous. “But what if the police want to interview me? I may be able to give them important information.”

  “I shouldn’t think you can.”

  Joy came racing silently upstairs and into the room. “Is he all right?”

  “Just the same. What have you got there?” Joan whispered.

  “Jehane’s jewels.” Joy had swept the stones from the cabinet into a big silk duster and now showed them glittering in the light. “You silly lot forgot all about them. We can’t leave them there; those brutes might come back.”

  “I’m quite sure they won’t do that,” Joan said. “What are you going to do with the stones?”

  “Sleep on them, for to-night. We’ll have to decide where to keep them. That cabinet isn’t safe.”

  “Bury them in the garden,” Jen said again. “They tempt people, if they can see them.”

  “Oh no, Jen! Surely we can do better than that. We could take them to the bank,” Joan began.

  “That would be burying them!” Jen protested. “You might as well put them in a hole in the ground.”

  “We can’t decide anything to-night.” Joy swept the discussion aside. “I’ll take them to my room. Here come the police!” as a car raced up the avenue. “I’ll go down.”

  She led the police sergeant to the drawing-room to see the scene of the crime, and told what she could. Jen, to her great satisfaction, was questioned also, but could add little to Joy’s story. There had been one tall man and one short one, who might have been a boy; Angus had been a hero—so said Jen—and had tackled them both, and had refused to let the man go, even when he threatened to break his arm. “And he’s a fiddler and going to be famous. His career depends on his right arm. But he wouldn’t let him go,” she said.

  “Can he see us?” asked the sergeant.

  “You can see him, if you like, but it won’t do any good,” Joy said. “He hit his head when he fell, and he’s not conscious yet.”

  “We’ll see him later, then. Now, Miss Shirley, can you give us any other clue?”

  Joy hesitated. “It was someone who had heard about the jewels and knew they were in the house, not in the Abbey, as they used to be. They came straight to this window; they knew where the stones were.”

  “And how could they know that?”

  “That’s for you to find out,” Joy retorted.

  “Local people, and somebody has been talking. I must question your staff.”

  Joy gave in. “Well, you needn’t; it was no one in the house. I didn’t want to tell you, but I suppose you’ll find out. You know Mrs. Watson, our caretaker in the Abbey? She’s jolly good at her job, but she’s a silly old thing
in other ways. She says it’s her fault. She talked about how glad she was that the jewels had been taken away from the Abbey.”

  “That’s what caused the trouble,” the sergeant agreed. “I’ll see her. The stones used to be in her care?”

  “In the Abbey—yes. But we—well, we felt a bit nervous about them and we thought they would be safer here.”

  The sergeant did not miss the sudden gleam in Jen’s eyes. “Yes, Miss——?” He looked at his notes.

  “Jen Robins. The jewels were safe in the Abbey,” Jen said defiantly, “but Ann—Mrs. Watson—went all frightened about them when she heard what a lot they were worth, and so Joan and Joy brought them here. But they still don’t seem to be safe. What do you think we should do with them?”

  “Put them in the bank,” the sergeant said curtly, and did not persist in his inquiries as to what the schoolgirl’s look had meant. “Well, Miss Shirley, if that is all you can tell me, I will see this woman, who has chattered to her friends in the village, I suppose. To-morrow I will have a talk with this Mr.—Reekie, is it?—odd name! If he is able to see me, that is.”

  “Poor old Ann!” Jen said, as they went upstairs. “She won’t enjoy talking to him. But she really is an idiot! I suppose you had to give her away?”

  “There was no help for it. Why did you look at me like that? I thought you were going to tell him about Angus and Rykie last summer.”

  “I was going to say we’d had a fright about the stones and that we thought a boy had been after them.”

  “A jolly good thing you managed to side-track him! He’d have wanted to know who the boy was. That story must be buried for ever,” Joy said. “Poor old Angus! He’s washed it out, if anybody ever did.”

  “He was awfully brave to-night,” Jen agreed. “I say, Joy, what price Selma?”

  Joy grinned. “She took Dr. Brown’s breath away. She doesn’t look a day more than fourteen, with her hair flopping down like that.”

  “D’you think she meant it?”

  “About Angus? Of course she did. She wakened up to how much she cares when she saw him lying hurt. She’d marry him to-morrow, if he asked her.”

  “Yes, that’s what she says. It’s a real, proper love story!” Jen said, in great satisfaction. “It’s the first time I’ve had anything to do with one! Jandy Mac was engaged, but we had nothing to do with it. This about Selma and Angus is quite different.”

  “I hope it ends happily,” Joy said gravely. “Now hop off to bed, infant! I’m going myself. We must leave Angus to Joan and Selma. I expect we shall all sleep in, as Selma says.”

  “She’d say, ‘We will all sleep in’,” and Jen took one peep into the quiet room, where Angus lay white and still, and Selma sat gazing at him with Joan’s arm round her.

  “Poor kid!” Jen said to herself. “But she’s got Joan. She’s all right,” and she gave a comforting nod to Selma and a reassuring one to Joan, and crept away to her own room.

  CHAPTER 28

  A NEW ANGUS

  Even when the nurse took charge, Selma refused to leave Angus. “He’ll wake soon and he’ll be wanting me,” she said. “I’ll bide here till he speaks to me. I’ll no’ leave him.”

  The nurse raised her brows and looked at Joan.

  “I’ll go to bed. There may be more to do to-morrow. Selma can stay here,” Joan said, and had a private word with the nurse out in the corridor. “Let her sit by him, Nurse. She won’t disturb him. They are very close friends.”

  The nurse looked disapproving. “She is only a child, surely?”

  “Nearly seventeen. They aren’t officially engaged, but they will be soon,” and Joan went wearily off to bed.

  When she looked in some hours later, the nurse, alone now, nodded. “I sent the girl to bed. She was right; he woke and asked for her. He said something, ‘My lassie’? I think it was, and she said, ‘I’m here, Angus. You’ll get well now, won’t you?’ He said, ‘Aye! Are the stones safe?’ She said, ‘You saved them. You were wonderful; just terribly brave.’ He smiled and fell asleep, and I told her he would sleep for hours and she must do the same. So she went off; she was worn out. Surely she’s very young for that sort of thing?”

  “Very young, but it’s the real thing, in her case. She has admired him and been very fond of him for some time. Last night she had a bad fright about him and she realised how much she cared. She has known his feeling for her, and has taken it for granted they would be married one day; but her own part in the story was rather vague. Everything is very much clearer in her mind since last night.”

  “She seemed to be thinking very deeply, while she sat by him.”

  “I expect she was. She had been through a good deal. I’m glad you persuaded her to go to bed.”

  “I sent her,” the nurse said grimly. “She was too exhausted to fight me about it.”

  Selma, like Joy and Jen, “slept in” that morning. Jen had gone reluctantly off to school, with a note of explanation to Miss Macey, before Selma woke. When, dressed and with her hair neatly bound by its ribbon, she slipped into the room and took her place by Angus again, the nurse admitted to herself that the girl was older and more responsible than she had thought.

  A police officer from Wycombe came during the morning and had a talk with Joy.

  “Your caretaker has relations in the village, her late husband’s people, and she seems to have talked to them about her relief in having the jewels taken out of her care. There is a lad called Frank——”

  “Frankie Watson! He’s not quite right,” Joy interrupted.

  “So I understand. He seems to be rather a simpleton. He says he met a friend in a pub somewhere—not here; he insists on that, but he won’t say where it was. He repeated what Mrs. Watson had said, and they made their plans. But I don’t see yet how they knew exactly where to find the jewels.”

  “Frankie,” Joy explained. “He has helped our gardener at times. If Ann Watson said the stones were in the big drawing-room, Frankie would know where to go.”

  “That seems clear. Perhaps the boy is not so simple, after all. I understand the young fellow who was hurt is only staying with you?”

  “He arrived on Friday night. Yes, I see what you mean; Frankie told his pal there was no man in the house?”

  “Only girls and ladies. The pal promised Frank some of the ‘shiny stones’ for himself, and Frank isn’t too simple to know they are worth a lot of money. No one but Frank saw the man; they took good care of that. We’ve no description of him, except that he is tall; he wore no gloves, and there are fingerprints all over the place, many of them Frank’s, of course. The other man seems to have been rather an amateur at the job, but he knew enough to cut your wire and to force the window without disturbing anybody. And he didn’t know you had a visitor. Perhaps Mr. Reekie will be able to tell us more about him, when he is stronger.”

  “There wasn’t much time for him to see anything. Well, we can’t prosecute Frankie Watson! Everyone knows he’s not all there.”

  “I’m afraid that is so. But we may catch the other chap, who is the real criminal.”

  “The real criminal is Ann Watson,” Joy said grimly. “But you can’t prosecute her for talking carelessly. Joan would never allow it.”

  “She seems very much distressed and talks as if she expected to lose her job over the business.”

  “Joan must tell her not to be an idiot. I suppose you’ll go on looking for the other fellow?”

  “We certainly shall. Watson says he came from London and would go back there; we shall make inquiries, but it is likely enough he went in the opposite direction. I distrust these simple people. They’re sometimes less foolish than they want you to believe.”

  Joy agreed. “I’m afraid we can’t help you much. We’ll let you know when Mr. Reekie is ready to be questioned.”

  “Angus wants to know things about last night,” Selma reported, when she came down to lunch. “He’s been awake and wanting to talk. I couldn’t tell him anything, but per
haps, next time he wakes, somebody else could come.”

  “We can’t tell him a great deal,” Joy said. “We’re hoping he’ll be able to tell us something.”

  “I don’t think he knows anything. He’s bothered about McAlistair and the dance band, but I told him you had wired to the addresses I gave you, and that you were going to write and tell McAlistair all about it.”

  “Tell him not to worry. We’ll see to it,” Joan said.

  “Aye, that’s what I said to him. I needn’t go to school, need I?” Selma looked at Joan and Mrs. Shirley, eyes wide with anxiety. “I couldn’t do any work. I can help the nurse; she says I can fetch and carry things for her, and when Angus wakes I’ll be there.”

  “Angus is more your job than school just now,” Joan assented. “If Nurse can find things for you to do, you had better stay and help her.”

  “She gives me jobs. She’s nice,” Selma said gratefully.

  “What I want to know,” Joy began, “is whether Angus realised he was risking his arm for us? Had he time to think? Did he hear what the man said? Or was it all a complete muddle?”

  “That’s most likely,” Joan observed. “Perhaps some day he’ll be able to tell us, but we certainly can’t ask him at present.”

  Both doctor and nurse forbade talking, though they were satisfied on the whole with their patient’s progress. But Angus was so uneasy and restless that by the next day the nurse relented and said Joan might come for a few minutes.

  Selma rose from her seat by the bed, smiled at Joan, and slipped away.

  “Go into the garden!” Nurse commanded. “You haven’t been out all day.”

  “I’ll go to the Abbey,” Selma said. “I think I’d like that.”

  “Ask Joy for the key of the gate,” Joan called after her, as she sat down by the bed. “Well, Angus, how are things going?”

  “Better, Miss Joan.” He gave her a small smile. “But I was wanting a word with you gey badly.”

  “Not many words,” Joan warned him. “You mustn’t talk much. What’s the trouble?”

  “Yon chap who tried to take the stones. Did you have the police?”