“That’s all right! Her girls are sure to be as nice as she is, so they’re certain to be Queens.”
Joan laughed. “Those girls are as far off as your ten boys.”
“Ten children! Only about seven are to be boys.”
“I really must tell Mirry your plans for her and for yourself!” Joan said.
CHAPTER FIVE
A BAD START FOR RYKIE
Jen’s news was received with unbelieving envy by the new Queen and her maid and the rest of her classmates.
“You’re going to live at the Hall for the whole term?” Beetle cried. “But why?”
“You’re jolly lucky,” Nesta exclaimed. “I shouldn’t have thought the Head would let you go.”
“Joan wants me. You’ll soon know why. Oh, well, I’ll tell you. A cousin’s coming to live with her, and she’s younger than I am, so she’ll have to come to school, and Joan thinks I’ll be company for her. I’m to keep her from worrying them too much, especially Mrs. Shirley.”
“Will she come here with you?”
“Who—Mrs. Shirley? Oh, you mean Rykie!” Jen teased. “Yes, of course; we’re to cycle together.”
“What’s her name?”
“Rykie. Short for Frederica.”
“Goodness!” Beetle said.
“The whole of it’s Rykie Reekie.”
“Jen!” There was a shout of protest.
“It is! It’s weird, I know, but she can’t help it.”
“I hope she isn’t as weird as her name,” Nesta remarked.
“I really don’t see how she can be as odd as that,” Jen agreed. “We think perhaps they shortened Frederica to Reeka, and then, when she went to school——”
“Shrieker!” There was a shout from Beatrice. “They called her Shrieker and she didn’t like it!”
“So her family suggested Rykie instead,” Jen assented. “But we don’t know, so don’t say anything to anybody, will you?”
“We’ll see if she is a shrieker first,” Beetle promised. “We won’t call her that unless it fits her.”
“You can’t make Rykie into Shrieker,” Jen pointed out. “And she may have a soft quiet voice like Joan’s. Joan speaks just as Mrs. Shirley does; Rykie may be like her aunt.”
“Aunt? Oh, yes, Mrs. Shirley, of course. All right, Jen; we’ll wait and see whether she shrieks or not,” Nesta agreed.
The car came for Jen on Saturday afternoon, and she leapt in beside Joan, calling greetings to Joy, who was driving.
“Isn’t this sport? Take care of us, Joy! It’s the first time you’ve had the honour of driving me; don’t smash me to bits! It’s a lovely car!”
“Like her?” Joy asked, gratified by the admiration of her treasure.
“She’s gorgeous! Couldn’t we go round by Thame or somewhere, just to give me a little longer?”
“You’ll have plenty of her. I may have to bring you to school next week.”
“Rykie is arriving on Tuesday evening,” Joan explained. “Mother had a letter this morning. Belle will bring her as far as Wycombe, but she can’t come to the house to see Mother. She has to rush back to town, as she is starting for the States early next morning.”
Jen looked at her, startled. “She isn’t coming to see Aunty Shirley at all?”
“No,” Joan said briefly.
“Not even to thank her for having Rykie?”
“She hasn’t time.”
Jen thought this over in silence, while Joan watched her with interest; Joy’s attention was concentrated on the traffic, but her face was grim.
“But—but—how rude!” Jen said at last.
“Exactly!” Joy flung over her shoulder.
“I’m very sorry they’ve left it so late,” Joan said gravely. “We hoped to see Belle for a day or two, at least.”
“It’s horrible!” Jen cried vehemently. “They’re just making use of you!”
“Quite right, Jenny-Wren!” Joy turned to the open country.
“It feels like that,” Joan agreed. “But they may not mean to be rude. Perhaps Belle’s plans have been changed at the last moment. She didn’t explain why she had to go in such a hurry.”
“Is Aunty Shirley upset?” Jen asked indignantly.
“She’s disappointed; she wanted to see both the girls. She’s being kind to them for their mother’s sake. Yes, she’s rather hurt,” Joan admitted.
“I hope you’ll tell the Belle girl what you think of her! You’ll see her at the station, won’t you? You’ll need to go, to meet Rykie.”
“It would serve Belle right if we didn’t meet Rykie,” Joy jerked.
“We must fetch her, of course. Mother wants to come to the station for a glimpse of Belle, but we’re persuading her to give up the idea. She wouldn’t get any satisfaction from it, and it would be a great effort; in the evening, too. She wouldn’t sleep after it.”
“I say, Joan! I bet you Belle doesn’t come at all. She’ll shove the kid into the train at Paddington and go off to finish her packing,” Joy called over her shoulder. “Aunty simply mustn’t attempt it. She’d have a horrible shock.”
Joan looked troubled. “It’s possible. We don’t know much about Belle. She may be the sort who could do it.”
“I bet you she is!” Jen cried. “She won’t come all the way to Wycombe just to turn and go straight back. Fancy not wanting to see the place where her sister’s going to live! I do think she sounds a rotter!”
“It doesn’t follow that Rykie will be like her,” Joan said quickly. “You mustn’t be prejudiced against her. I want you two to be friends.”
Jen gave a doubtful grunt. “Can’t say I like what I’ve heard of the family so far!”
“Rykie may be quite different from Belle.”
“She may, or she may be just like her,” Jen growled. “I’m not looking forward to seeing her very much. But I’ll be nice to her, of course, or you’ll send me back to school.”
“I hope we shan’t need to do that,” Joan said seriously.
Jen shot a look at her. “Are you bothered, Joan?”
“Just a little,” Joan admitted. “I’m hoping for a lot of help from you.”
“I’ll do my level best,” Jen promised.
“Belle has given Rykie a bad start, by disappointing us like this,” Joan went on. “We mustn’t hold it against Rykie that her sister has been—shall we say callous and unkind, especially to Mother.”
“I should say, downright brutal,” Jen said bitterly. “Poor Aunty Shirley! It’s a shame, when she’s so sweet and good and is putting up with these girls because she liked her sister who died! But it may not be anything to do with Rykie; I see that. We don’t know much about her yet.”
“Except that she must be some years younger than Belle and would have to fall in with any plan Belle chose to make.”
“Four years, at least,” Joy remarked. “The brutal Belle couldn’t go off alone to a mysterious job in the States unless she is quite eighteen, and she may be a good deal more. Aunty doesn’t know her age and Belle hasn’t seen fit to tell us. She cares nothing about anybody’s feelings but her own. Callous is the word, Joan.”
Jen gave a deep sigh. “I feel in my bones that Rykie isn’t going to be our sort. I expect she’ll say the Abbey is quaint, or perhaps dinky.”
“Oh, Jen!” Joan cried, laughing. “I hope she won’t be as bad as that!”
Joy gave a shout of laughter. “Is that the lowest depth?”
“I shall find it very hard to be nice to her, if she does,” Jen said firmly. “There are some things it’s difficult to forgive, and that’s one of them.”
“If she’s like that, you’ll have to educate her,” Joan suggested.
Jen sighed again and became silent. Joan glanced at her and slipped a hand through her arm. Jen pressed it to her side and gave her a small smile.
“I’ll try. I want to help you,” she said.
The car swept up the avenue between the double row of beeches and reached the steps
of the terrace. Jen flung herself out and raced indoors to find Mrs. Shirley.
“Aunty Shirley, I’ve come! It is so nice to be here again! And it’s lovely to see you; you look so well and jolly, dear!”
“I hope the kid won’t say anything to worry Aunty,” Joy said, as Joan stepped from the car.
“She won’t. You can trust Jen; surely you know that by this time,” Joan retorted. “She’ll keep off the Reekies, unless Mother speaks about them.”
She was right. Not only Jen but the whole family avoided the subject, and the discussion of possibly difficult days ahead was postponed.
Jen ran to the Abbey to greet her friends, the Mother Superior, a stout elderly black cat, her shaggy foster-son, Gray Timmy, and her own boy, the tall slim Curate with the square white collar under his chin. To them, in the strict privacy of the sacristy, she confided her dread of the strange girl to come on Tuesday, but to Joan she said no more, and to Mrs. Shirley nothing at all.
“It would only make them feel worse to keep on talking about it,” and she stroked the Mother Superior’s sleek head. “I don’t believe Rykie’s going to fit in, and everyone else is so jolly that it will be simply awful if she doesn’t. But it’s because of her I’m here, in term time, so I won’t grouse too much. Don’t tell Joan I said anything, will you, Timmy?”
Timmy tossed his wild gray locks and rolled over on his back and promised to say nothing. He held up his paws and asked to be tickled under his arms, and Jen laughed and obliged.
It was a quietly happy week-end. Joan and Jen sat together in the Abbey on Sunday afternoon, and Jen wrote to her mother, thanking her for the permission to come here, but saying nothing about the Reekie girls. Joy went to her piano and played lullabies, and Mrs. Shirley listened happily, enjoying the music.
Then came Monday and the delight of an early-morning drive to school, sitting beside Joy in the front seat of the car. Much discussion of Nesta’s crowning and some parrying of questions about the new girl were followed by another car-ride after school and a quiet evening of prep, shut alone into the library.
“I’ve liked to-day!” Jen sighed, as she went to bed in the little room which was always kept for her. “I wish things could go on like this, without Rykie Reekie coming here at all!”
CHAPTER SIX
COUNTRY COUSINS
“Don’t tell Rykie why you are living with us,” Joan warned Jen, as they drove to the station. “Just say you are staying at the Hall for a while. We don’t know her yet; she might resent the idea that you have come to help us.”
“To keep her in order; yes, she might get her back up,” Jen assented. “I’ll be careful. I’m staying with you, as I’ve done lots of times. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Quite right, and very natural. I’m sure it will be best.”
“I shall wait for you in the car,” Joy said, as she drew up at the station. “There’s no need for a whole mob to greet one infant.”
“But you want to see Belle, don’t you?” Joan asked. “She has half an hour to wait for a train back to town. I thought we’d give her coffee in the restaurant and have a talk with her.”
“I forgot Belle,” Joy acknowledged. “I’ll come, then. Yes, I’d like to see her. But I don’t really believe she’ll be there.”
“I hope she won’t have sent poor Rykie all alone to meet strangers,” Joan said.
“We’ll ask her what her mysterious job is in America,” Jen suggested. “I do hope she’ll come. I want to know what she’s like.”
They were standing together on the platform when the train drew in. After the usual bustle of arrival the crowd cleared, and the girls looked eagerly for their guests.
One small girl was left behind, standing by her suitcase and asking a porter to find her trunk.
“No Belle,” Joy said briefly. “I’m not surprised.”
Joan hurried forward, but Jen was before her. Rushing to the stranger, all her motherly instincts stirred, she cried, “Have you come quite alone? Oh, how dreadful for you! But we’re glad to see you; you’ll soon feel at home with us. You are Rykie, aren’t you?”
“I am Rykie,” the new girl assented, looking her up and down. “But who are you?”
“Jen is staying with us.” Joan came up. “I’m Joan, your cousin; and this is Joy, my cousin.”
“The one the house belongs to?” Rykie’s eyes rested thoughtfully on Joy.
The other three were looking curiously at her; Jen in simple wonder, Joan with astonished indignation. There would need to be changes in Rykie before she went to school.
The girl from Scotland had very fair hair, beside which Jen’s plaits looked yellow; it was shoulder-length and beautifully waved, in long smooth curls. Her lips were bright red; she was certainly wearing rouge and powder, and her fingernails matched her lips. She was, in fact, made up as completely as a film star.
“At fourteen!” Joan thought in horror.
Joy looked at Rykie and grinned in whole-hearted amusement. “Trying to impress the country cousins?” she asked pleasantly. “Or do you always go about looking a figure of fun?”
Rykie stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“I think you know,” Joan said brusquely. “But we won’t discuss your appearance here. Come along; the car’s outside. The sooner you get home and clean yourself up the better.”
“Oh, don’t you like make-up?” Rykie asked, with would-be innocence. “You don’t use any, do you?” She spoke, they all noticed, without a trace of Scottish accent.
“I shouldn’t think of it,” Joan retorted. “And you aren’t going to use it either, in our house. You may as well know that at once. If you don’t like the idea of having a clean face, you can go back to town; there’s a train in half an hour. What your sister can be thinking about to let you paint yourself like this at fourteen, I can’t imagine.”
“Oh, is it all put on?” Jen cried, listening wide-eyed. “I was thinking how pretty she is! But if it isn’t real, that’s different.”
“It isn’t real,” Joan assured her. “Are you coming, or are you going back to town, Rykie?”
“Oh, I’m coming,” Rykie said, rather sulkily. “I don’t want to go back. But it’s not your house; it’s hers,” with a glance under her long lashes at Joy.
“It’s mine,” Joy assented. “But anything that Joan says goes, with me, and don’t you forget it. Besides, I don’t want a stage puppet in my house. Your Belle must be mad. Fourteen!”
“Belle makes up herself,” Rykie said heatedly. “She has to look nice, meeting people as she does. She must be up to date.”
“Nice!” said Joan. “Look here, Rykie! We don’t want to be unkind, when you’ve just arrived, but you’ve been a bit of a shock, you know. I dare say when you’ve got that stuff off your face and hands, we may like you quite a lot. It must be more Belle’s fault than yours; we’ll be fair and remember that. But to us you look—well, completely unsuitable and even silly.”
“Of course, I suppose it doesn’t matter how one looks here.” And Rykie flung a doubtful glance round.
“It matters that you mustn’t look like a little old woman when you’re only a schoolgirl,” Joan informed her. “When we get home you’ll go straight upstairs and wash your face before Mother sees you. You couldn’t kiss her with all that lipstick on. She’d be upset, if she saw you like this.”
“She’d have forty fits,” Joy said, taking her place at the wheel. “Jen will lead you to the bathroom as soon as we arrive. And before we start, my child, I’ve one thing to say. As you reminded us, it’s my house, and I’m willing you should live in it. But if you do one single thing to worry or upset Aunty, you’ll be fired; you’ll go right back to town in double quick time. I will not have anything to bother Aunty. She isn’t strong; I won’t have her made ill. So be careful, if you want to stay with us.”
“You couldn’t send me back to town!” Rykie cried. “Belle’s starting to-morrow!”
“Oh, couldn’t we? We
know the address of that lawyer-guardian-trustee; Belle gave it to us. I could easily run you up to London and dump you in his office, if you don’t fall in with the ways of the house.” And Joy looked capable of it, as she drove carefully out into the traffic.
Rykie said nothing for a time, but sat looking very thoughtful. “It’s a nice car,” she remarked at last.
Joy warmed towards her at once. “She’s new,” she said. “We had a tiny run-about at first.”
“This is much jollier. You drive well, don’t you?”
Joy grinned; this sounded very much like an attempt to soften her hard heart. “I’m very keen on driving.”
Joan in the back seat was sitting between Jen and Rykie, saying nothing, but looking troubled. Her new cousin seemed likely to be a bit of a problem.
Jen squeezed her arm. “Joan! Will she show me how she does it?”
Joan looked startled. “How who does what, Jenny-Wren?”
“How she puts that stuff on. I’d like to see her do it.”
Joan knit her brows. “I dare say Rykie would show you. Why do you want to know?”
“I’m curious. I know grown-up people do it. I want to see how it’s done.”
“You can ask her. But I shouldn’t have thought it would appeal to you in the least.”
“Oh, it doesn’t!” Jen assured her. “I only want to know how she does it; I’d never want to do it myself. I think she looks horrible.”
Joan laughed in relief. “I thought you said it was pretty?”
“It is, in a way. But now that I know it’s just stuck on, I don’t like it. She looks like a very posh doll in a shop window. And—whisper, Joan!”
Joan bent, not very far, for Jen was tall.
“Her nails are awful!” Jen murmured. “I’ve seen shopgirls with hands like that. I loathe red nails!”
“You’re very sound,” Joan said. “I loathe them myself.”
Rykie was watching them. “What are you whispering about?”
Jen crimsoned. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to be rude. I asked Joan if she thought you’d show me how you do it; make yourself look like that, you know.”
Strangers at the Abbey Page 3