Strangers at the Abbey

by Elsie J. Oxenham

  He had a pleasant voice, rather surprisingly low and musical, and with the Scottish accent which was lacking in Rykie.

  “Go away, and don’t make excuses!” Jen cried.

  Angus shrugged again and obeyed. He went out to the lane and turned towards the village.

  “It’s more than he deserves,” Joan remarked. “But I’m thinking about Mother. Now—oh, here’s Ann! I was afraid she’d hear us.”

  The caretaker, Mrs. Watson, came from her rooms in the wall. “Miss Joan?” she asked anxiously. “Is anything wrong?”

  “Wrong!” Jen exploded. “Only a burglar after Lady Jehane’s jewels!”

  “It’s all right now, Ann.” Joan checked Mrs. Watson’s cry of dismay. “It was just a silly boy. He won’t come back. I’ll tell you more about it to-morrow. These girls must get to bed.”

  Mrs. Watson’s eyes looked wonderingly at Jen and Rykie. “I never heard nothing,” she faltered.

  “It’s not your fault. There was nothing you could hear, till I opened the big gate,” Joan said quickly, to comfort her.

  “Be the stones safe now, Miss Joan?”

  “Oh, yes! We’ve locked the door again. Don’t worry, Ann! Go back to bed, there’s a dear. We’re all very tired.” Joan drove the schoolgirls before her to the garth.

  “But how was the door unlocked? How did he get in?” Mrs. Watson wanted to know.

  “That’s the question. How did he?” Joan said grimly. “Go after her, Jen!” as Rykie fled. “Take her to bed. Ann dear, I can’t talk to-night. I’ll tell you more in the morning. Everything is locked up and safe; you’ve nothing to worry about. He can’t get in again, and there was nobody with him. So be a dear and let me go to bed too. I’m tired out with all the fuss.”

  She left the caretaker looking very dissatisfied, and followed the girls to the house.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  JEN THE COMFORTER

  Jen was waiting at the door. “Rykie’s gone to bed. Oh, Joan, dear, isn’t she a little horror?”

  “It’s the only word for her.” Joan dropped into a big chair in the entrance hall, suddenly conscious of complete exhaustion. “Go to bed, Jenny-Wren. I’ll come in a minute or two.”

  Jen looked at her anxiously. Then she crept away, but not to bed.

  Joan lay back in her chair, her eyes closed, the scenes of the night dancing before her. This must stop, she knew, if she was to sleep, but she could not forget. Rykie—Angus—Mrs. Watson. What to do about it all?

  “I’d better lie down, but I can’t possibly sleep,” she said to herself. Then she sat up suddenly. “What was that? I heard something. Oh, not any more to-night, surely!”

  A light came from a back passage. Joan went hurriedly to investigate and found the big kitchen lit up and Jen busy at the stove.

  “Jen, what are you doing?” she demanded from the doorway.

  Jen looked up. “Did you hear? I tried to be quiet. Only making a cup of tea for you, Joan, dear. You looked so tired. The kettle’s almost boiling. There! You shall have it in a moment. You want it, don’t you?”

  Joan sank into Cook’s arm-chair. “You angel! How did you know I was dying for a cup of tea?”

  Jen closed the door. “We don’t want Joy or Aunty Shirley to hear. I was going to bring it to you, but we’ll have it here; it will be safer. There! Doesn’t that look comforting?”

  “Very comforting!” Joan’s laugh almost broke into a sob. “Jen, you dear! It’s just what I was needing, but I wouldn’t have made it for myself.”

  “That’s what I thought. I could do with some too,” Jen admitted.

  She crept to the dining-room for the silver biscuit-box, and brought a cake from the larder. “We shan’t do so badly. I’ll pour out your tea; I know just how you like it.”

  “It’s good of you, Jenny-Wren. You enjoy mothering people, don’t you? Perhaps I shall be able to sleep after this.” Joan took her cup gratefully.

  Jen glanced at her. “I know how you’re feeling; all churned up inside. I’m just the same. I boil over if I think about that awful kid, and yet I suppose we’ve got to keep her here. Or will you send her away?”

  “You’ve put your finger on the difficult spot; one of them,” Joan said wearily. “Angus is another. The business isn’t finished, although we’ve got rid of him for to-night.”

  Jen looked at her thoughtfully over the teapot. “It would be finished, for most people. But for you—no, you’ll want to do something about it. I wasn’t thinking of him. But I do feel it’s difficult about Rykie. I don’t want ever to speak to her again, but I suppose I’ll have to, if she stays here.”

  “We won’t talk about it to-night. There’s a lot to be said and planned, but not at one o’clock in the morning. Rykie ought to have some tea and biscuits,” and Joan sat up. “I thought she looked quite ill; I’m sure she had a horrible shock when she found what Angus really meant to do. She’ll cry herself into a fever. Pour out a cup and I’ll take it up to her,” and she put biscuits and a slice of cake on a plate.

  Jen silently found a tray. Then she asked, her tone subdued, “Would you like me to take it up?”

  Joan shot a look at her. “Would you? I wish you would.”

  Jen swallowed hard. “All right, I will—to please you and because I want you to sit still and rest. Perhaps I’d better speak to her again; the last thing I said was that I loathed her and all her family.”

  “I don’t blame you. I know how you feel.” Joan lay back in her chair, looking very weary. “But it’s no use; we have to get over that sort of thing. Do take up the tray, Jen dear, and say something kind if you can. If you can’t, I’d better go myself. The kid’s in trouble; she’s had a bad shock and she’s all alone with us.”

  “And she knows we don’t love her a scrap,” Jen assented. “She must feel rather stranded. I’ll try, Joan. If I can be nice to her I will.”

  “Don’t fall over the Curate!” Joan warned her, with a thought for an early morning adventure of the year before.

  Jen chuckled. “Here he is; he would be! You’d better grab him and keep him out of my way.”

  Joan caught the slim black cat and gave him milk in a saucer. “You’re a lucky boy, to come in for a meal at this time of night!”

  Jen came back presently, looking grave. “I’m glad you thought of it, and I’m glad I went. She hadn’t undressed; she was lying on the bed, crying quarts. I hate to see anybody cry like that.”

  “Could you comfort her?” Joan knew very well that Jen’s motherly heart had been touched.

  “I tried. I told her not to be an ass and that it would be all right and you were always kind. I said you’d understand, and we’d see about things in the morning. And I said I didn’t loathe her quite so much, if she was sorry, but I still loathe Angus rather a lot. The trouble is, she wants Belle.”

  “Someone of her own,” Joan agreed. “She has never felt she really belongs here. Thank you for going to her, Jen dear. Did you see her into bed?”

  “I thought I’d better. She’s having the tea and eats. She’s frightfully tired. I think she’ll go to sleep.”

  “The food will help her. Thank you, Jenny-Wren. Take some more tea yourself. We won’t talk any more till the morning.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said a voice from the doorway. “What’s the meaning of this?” and Joy, in her green dressing-gown and with long red plaits hanging on her shoulders, stalked into the kitchen.

  “Oh—Joy!” Joan wailed. “I hoped you wouldn’t wake!”

  “Must be my fault,” Jen groaned. “I did try to be quiet. But perhaps Joy heard me in Rykie’s room.”

  “I did,” Joy agreed. “And I heard the tinkle of a cup on a tray. Is the kid ill? But why are you and Joan dressed? Yes, thank you, Miss Robins. Since you’ve offered it so generously, I will have a cup of tea and some of that cake.”

  Joan went quietly to the door and closed it. “We mustn’t wake Mother. I’m sorry we disturbed you.”


  Jen peered into the pot and grinned. “I don’t think there is any more tea. I didn’t make enough for such a big family. Shall I make some more?”

  “Put some water in,” Joan advised. “It may not be very good tea, but Joy doesn’t deserve the best. She ought to be in bed.”

  “I like that! What about you and Jen? All dressed up to go out—though I can’t say I admire the way you’ve done your hair, Miss Shirley!”

  Joan pulled out the pins and let the long plaits fall on the shoulders of her brown jumper. “I bundled it up anyhow, when Jen called me. I must have looked a sight.”

  “You did,” Joy said frankly, perching herself on the table. “Thanks, Mrs. Wren; it’s quite good tea. Now some cake; thank you. So it’s Jen’s party, is it? Do you mean to say she woke you and brought you down to the kitchen to have tea and biscuits, at one a.m., and that you both dressed up in skirts and jumpers and winter coats? I simply don’t believe it! What have you been up to? You’ve been out; I’m sure of it. Why didn’t you call me? I don’t like being left out of any fun that’s going.”

  “Fun!” Joan said sombrely, the scene in the refectory rising before her eyes.

  “We didn’t want you,” Jen said promptly. “There were quite enough of us racing about the Abbey without you there, getting excited and making things worse.”

  “I getting excited—or should it be ‘me’? Well, I like that!” Joy said indignantly again. “Who lets out wild yells when anything happens, so that she’s heard miles away? You’ve been in the Abbey, have you? I might have guessed; it’s where you and Joan would go, at any hour of the day or night! But why, on this particular occasion? How does the Rykie child come into it? I shouldn’t have thought you’d want her. And how dare you have a party in the Abbey at midnight and not invite me? I don’t mind telling you I feel very hurt about it.” And she certainly looked it, as she gazed at them with indignant, wide brown eyes.

  Joan and Jen looked at one another.

  “Couldn’t you wait till the morning?” Jen groaned. “Joan’s just about done in. I made the tea because she looked so ghastly. She can’t go over it all again to-night. She’ll faint, or be sick, or cry, or something, if she has to talk any more just now.”

  Joy gave her cousin a sharp look. “She does seem rather off colour. But you’ve made me desperately curious. What on earth has happened to upset old Joan so much? She can generally cope with anything without collapsing.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Joy! I’m not going to collapse,” Joan said. “But I’m more than ready for bed.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but I simply couldn’t bear to go to bed until I know all about this,” Joy said inexorably.

  “May I tell her, Joan?” Jen pleaded. “You can pull me up, if I say too much. That wouldn’t be as bad for you as having to do the talking yourself, would it?”

  “I didn’t want to think any more about it to-night.” There was a sudden break in Joan’s brave voice. “We’ve had a horrid shock, Joy. I think I’m just beginning to feel it. We had to keep going while—well, you’ll have to know, I suppose. Could you tell her, Jen? I’ll be glad if you will.”

  “You were splendid while it was happening,” Jen cried. “No one could have guessed you were a scrap upset! But that makes it all the worse for you now, of course.”

  “I shall wring your little neck in a moment, Jenny-Wren,” Joy said gently.

  “It’s a different little neck, somebody else’s, that you’ll want to wring presently,” Jen assured her. “All right, I’ll tell you. Don’t touch me! Or you won’t hear a word.”

  Joy went back to her seat on the table. “Fire away, then, and be quick about it,” she commanded.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  TELLING JOY

  “Something woke me.” Jen gazed at Joy and spoke rapidly. “I thought Rykie was moving about, so I slipped into her room; she might have been feeling ill. She wasn’t there, and she hadn’t been to bed. I heard the garden door, so I looked out, and there she was, crossing the lawn to the Abbey gate. So I woke Joan, and we dressed and went after her.”

  “You might have come for me!”

  “We were afraid of waking Aunty Shirley. You talk such a lot,” Jen said simply.

  Joy grinned. “Go on! But I can’t quite forgive you.”

  “We saw a light in the refectory, so we rushed up, and there she was——”

  “After Jehane’s jewels?” Joy’s eyes were wide. “You don’t mean to say she really tried to pinch them?”

  “How did you know?” Jen stared at her. “What made you think she would?”

  “We knew she was keen on them. She asked us to give her one little one,” Joan said. “We didn’t tell you. We knew it would make you wild, and it’s been hard enough for you to be friends with her.”

  Jen thought over this idea. “It wouldn’t have made it any easier,” she acknowledged. “Thank you, Joan. That was kind.”

  Joy leaned forward and poked her. “Go on with the yarn! Did you throw yourself on Rykie and throttle her?”

  “I jumped on somebody else.” Jen’s eyes gleamed. “She had a man with her—a boy, if you like, but he’s grown up—and he was staring at the stones and saying he’d bag the lot. Rykie had meant him to take just one little one, and he was to sell it and send her share; but when he saw how many there were he couldn’t resist them. He said he’d take the lot and they’d all be in clover for ever.”

  Joy stared at her and then at Joan. “Gosh! What a mercy you were there! Who was he? How did she get hold of him? Did Jen really jump on him?”

  “You’re very dense, or half asleep,” Jen retorted. “He was ‘A,’ of course, and those letters were planning it.”

  “Oh! Yes, I see now. He’d come from London to help her to get hold of one stone, and then he was tempted by the sight of them into a full-scale burglary. But who was he? I suppose you saved the jewels? Where is he now?”

  “Joan sent him away. She said she couldn’t prosecute him, for Aunty Shirley’s sake.”

  “For Rykie’s sake, too,” Joan remarked. “Her share would have had to come out. It would have been horrible, Joy. Mother would have felt it dreadfully.”

  “We took him to the gate and sent him off, to sleep under a hedge or walk back to London. I hated doing it, but I suppose Joan was right.” Jen still sounded doubtful.

  “It was the only thing to do,” Joan said wearily.

  “I wouldn’t have done it! I wouldn’t have allowed it, if I’d been there!” Joy said wrathfully. “You caught a thief red-handed and you just tamely let him go? I’ve often thought you were soft, Joan. Now I know it!”

  “She’s not soft!” Jen cried. “It’s a good thing we didn’t wake you! We knew you’d make a fuss. Joan’s never been soft about anything! I suppose you’d have sent for the police on the spot?”

  “Of course. It would have been the right thing to do.”

  “It wouldn’t! Joan said it wouldn’t, and she knows.”

  “Oh, Jenny-Wren!” Joan began to laugh. “You know it’s exactly what you wanted to do! Yes, Joy? You’d have rung up the police. And then?”

  “I’d have given him in charge as a burglar.”

  “He hadn’t taken anything. We’d have had to prove he meant to do it. Yes? And then?”

  “He’d have gone to prison, and serve him jolly well right.”

  “That would have been pleasant for us all! And what about Mother? Her feelings wouldn’t have mattered, I suppose? He’s not related to us, but he’s certainly connected. And we’d have had to say that Rykie let him in.”

  “I’d have told the police. It would have given her a jolly good fright; it wouldn’t hurt her! How do you mean, ‘connected’?” Joy frowned. “I don’t want to have any connection with him!”

  “You haven’t, but Joan has,” Jen observed. “We didn’t tell you that bit. Rykie says he’s her brother.”

  “What?” Joy gasped, and sat staring at them. “Oh, that’s rot! She can’t h
ave been concealing a brother all this time!”

  “She can have half a dozen brothers, so far as I can see,” Jen rejoined. “We don’t know much about her family or her past life.”

  “That’s true. She’s been rather an oyster.” Joy turned to Joan. “Do you believe he’s your cousin?”

  “He isn’t,” Joan said placidly. “He’s Rykie’s half-brother. Her father, who married Aunt Isabel, had been married before and had a baby boy. I don’t know if Mother knew. She didn’t like Uncle Frederick and she never went to their house. Or she may have forgotten.”

  “It complicates things.” Joy frowned again. “His name’s the same as Rykie’s, of course.”

  “Angus Reekie.” Jen agreed.

  “Aunty wouldn’t like a court case,” Joy admitted. “But I hate to think you let him slink away. Tell me the rest! Did Jen really jump on him?”

  “With a roar of fury,” Joan assented, with a laugh. “She knocked him down—he wasn’t expecting a hefty person to launch herself on his back! She sat on him, and I went to help. Rather to our surprise Rykie helped too, and held him so that he couldn’t kick. The three of us were too much for him.”

  “It was jolly mean of you to keep it to yourselves! I’d have given him a few extra thumps!”

  “We had to find out who he was and all about it,” Joan explained. “Rykie told us; she was in an awful state, sobbing as if her heart was broken.” She sat up. “You know, Joy and Jen, the kid hadn’t meant it to be serious. She really thought we’d never miss one little stone. But when Angus said he was going to take the lot, she had a real fright. She shrieked to me to stop him. It gave her a horrible shock.”

  “Yes,” Jen admitted. “Yes, Joan, it did. That was why she helped us to sit on him.”

  “I’m sorry for her,” Joan said sombrely. “I’m quite sure she’s feeling terrible now.”

  “Do her good. She needed something to bring her to her senses,” Joy said callously. “To pinch one stone was just as much stealing as to take twenty-five!”