Schoolgirl Jen at the Abbey

by Elsie J. Oxenham

  “Well, poor dear, can you wonder?” Jen exclaimed. “I don’t suppose he’s ever seen a ship! I’d be scared myself.”

  “He hasn’t seen the sea, or a ship, except in pictures. He told us so,” Joan said. “But we can make it so easy for him! He really hasn’t anything to be afraid of.”

  “If we can only make him believe that!” Janice said doubtfully.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  SUSIE IS SENSIBLE

  “Miss Jen! Oh, please, Miss Jen!” Susie Spindle caught Jen as she went downstairs.

  “What’s the matter, Susie? Anything I can do?”

  “Let me see them things you bought for Vinny! Oh, please, Miss Jen!”

  Jen stood, one hand on the banister rail, and stared down at her. “Who told you we had bought things for Vinny? We thought you wouldn’t like to know.”

  “Vinny told me you said you’d get things for her to go to America in. I saw her in the village. You had parcels in the car and you been to London.”

  “I see. I’ll ask Joan.” And Jen went thoughtfully on her way.

  “We’d better let her see the clothes, Joan,” she urged, as they went through the garden to find Boniface. “I don’t believe it will upset her; she sounded quite calm, only interested. It will be a treat for her; she doesn’t have too many.”

  Joan looked troubled. “I don’t want to make her more jealous of Lavinia.”

  “I don’t think it will. You can remind her that Vinny’s going away, for good and all.”

  “Perhaps Susie’s developing some sense,” Janice said. “She’s older than Lavinia, isn’t she?”

  “Quite two years. Vinny isn’t thirteen yet; Susie is fifteen. I’ll speak to her; we could ask Lavinia here and let her and Susie have a private view, if Susie is really going to be sensible.”

  “That would be fun, and they’d both feel better,” Jen said. “Susie doesn’t like to feel left out. It’s as if we and Vinny had a secret from her.”

  “I see that,” Joan admitted. “I don’t want to be unfair to her.”

  “Here’s your old friend,” Janice said as Boniface came to meet them on the garth. “And I don’t like the look on his face one bit.”

  Boniface Browning looked old and careworn. As he met the girls he broke into restless, unhappy speech. “Miss Joan! I can’t do it! I can’t go on the sea, with nobody to help. I’m feared o’ that ship! Let me bide here in the quiet!”

  “Oh, Boniface, you mustn’t back out now!” Joan exclaimed. “Think how disappointed your daughter and her family would be! And think of poor little Vinny!”

  “You won’t be alone on the ship, my dear man!” Janice urged. “There will be crowds of people to take care of you—the captain, and the sailors, and the stewards! They’re always kind.”

  “They’ll tell you what to do,” Jen added. “And Jandy will tell you before you start. She’s been on heaps of ships.”

  The old man’s frightened eyes turned to Janice. “If you was goin’ too, miss——! But I can’t go, not alone with just young Vinny. I’m feared! It’s too far.”

  Eagerly the girls told him how easy it would be—the car right to the dockside, the waiting ship, friends ready to help in Montreal.

  “And if the sea makes you feel ill, you can just go to bed and stay there,” Janice told him. “I’ve done it many a time. People are very good to you.”

  But Boniface’s nerve had given way. He was nearly in tears as he repeated that he was afraid, that it was too far, that he could not go with only Vinny for company.

  Jen pulled Joan’s arm. “Come away and leave him to think it over!”

  “I thought he was going to cry,” she explained, as they went gloomily through the garden. “Then we might have cried too. Oh, Joan—Jandy! Isn’t it awful? What are we going to do?”

  “It’s too much for him,” Joan said sombrely. “He doesn’t mean to go.”

  “He needs somebody to hold his hand,” Janice remarked. “He can’t face it alone.”

  “It will be worse for Vinny, if she has to go alone,” Jen urged.

  “The tragedy is that he really wants to go. He’s pining to see his daughter and the great-grandchildren,” Joan groaned. “I know that’s true, by the way he spoke before. But he can’t face the journey. It’s too big an effort at his age.”

  “Such an easy journey!” Janice insisted.

  “But we can’t make him believe it,” Joan said, in despair.

  “Wait a day or two. He may think better of it. But we ought to book the berths.”

  “I know, Jandy. But we can’t book for an old man who won’t go.”

  “Oh, he must go! We can’t give up hope! Think of Vinny!” Jen wailed. “That poor kid! She couldn’t bear it, if she had to go quite alone!”

  “Don’t suggest it to her, so long as there’s any chance,” Joan advised. “We’ll try to buck Boniface up, for Vinny’s sake. And we’ll let Susie fetch her to-morrow to see her new clothes. It will make the journey seem real to Lavinia. I don’t think she quite believes in it yet.”

  She spoke to Susie that evening. “You know we are giving Vinny Miles new clothes for her trip to Canada?”

  Susie looked back at her frankly. “Yes, Miss Joan. She’s glad. She hadn’t no—she hadn’t any things to go in.”

  “No, she needed a big coat and some other clothes. Would you like to see them?”

  Susie’s eyes sparkled. “I would that! You give—you gave me lots of new things when I came here,” she added.

  “So we did. You hadn’t very much, had you?”

  “You gave me pretty prints and aprons for mornings and a good black dress, but they was for my work. ’Sides those, you give me a lovely blue frock to wear on my days out,” Susie said breathlessly, her careful English beginning to desert her in her eagerness. “There wa’n’t no call for you to do that. It was just to be kind. I don’t never forget that blue frock, Miss Joan.”

  Joan’s eyes were bright. “Susie, how very nice of you! You look so jolly in that frock when you go to the village. You won’t feel sore if we give Vinny a few things, when she needs them so badly, will you?”

  “Vinny’s going away, from everybody, and from you and Miss Jen. I wouldn’ like that.” Susie’s experience told her that Jen would be at the Hall constantly, for week-ends and extra days, even though her home might be somewhere mysteriously called “the North” or “moors”. “I’d rather stay here than have lots of new frocks.”

  “Oh, I see! You’re being very sensible, Susie. But don’t forget that Vinny is going to her father and her family; she wants to go. Don’t say anything to frighten her or make her feel it’s a long way.”

  “No, Miss Joan. And she’ll go with her old uncle. But I ain’t got no uncles or fathers or families. I’ll stay here always, won’t I?”

  “That will depend on yourself,” Joan said cheerfully. “So long as cook is satisfied with you, you’ll certainly stay, if you want to.”

  “I’d like to be cook some day.”

  “There’s no reason at all why you shouldn’t be a cook. Learn all you can, and when the time comes we’ll see. To-morrow you can put on the blue frock and go and fetch Vinny to see her new clothes. Tell cook you are to have a holiday.”

  Much cheered, Susie went back to her duties. And still more cheered, Joan went to the other girls and told them of the interview.

  “Susie being sensible at last!” Joy mocked. “She’s growing up. She really has been rather a baby for her age.”

  “How lovely of her to say that about the blue frock! To understand and appreciate it, I mean!” Jen cried. “I like Susie a lot better than I did!”

  “Joan, Jen and I went back to see old Boniface, as you suggested,” Janice said. “I thought I might be able to convince him that the journey would be easy. But it wasn’t any use. He almost wept again and kept saying he couldn’t go alone, and Vinny was too young to be any good. He feels he’ll need to take care of her, and he wants to be taken care of
himself.”

  “He kept on saying, ‘If only somebody else could go, somebody what knows about ships’,” Jen groaned. “We can’t go to Canada, just to hold his hand!”

  “Let me talk to him!” Joy suggested. “I’ll soon get rid of him for you!”

  “How would you do that?” Joan demanded.

  “Tell him flatly that he isn’t wanted in the Abbey any longer and he’d better go to his own people, who do want him.”

  “Joy! You couldn’t! You’d break his heart!” Jen wailed.

  “You mustn’t do it, Joy. I won’t have it,” Joan said quickly. “The Abbey is mine, and I’ve said he may stay. I won’t have him driven out.”

  “It would be all for his good,” Joy argued. “He’d be glad, once he’d started.”

  “I dare say he would, but I won’t have him frightened. I’m beginning to be afraid it’s too late and he really is too old for such a great effort.”

  “But what about Vinny?” Jen said urgently. “She’ll break her heart if she has to go alone. It would be terribly hard on her!”

  “I don’t know, and that’s the truth,” Joan admitted. “I feel rather hopeless. If only Boniface would be sensible, like Susie Spindle!”

  And in the lowest possible spirits, on this one point, the girls looked at one another, but found no new suggestion and no way to help.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  THE BABES IN THE WOOD ARE AFRAID

  “Oh, Miss Joan! Be these all for me?” Lavinia’s breath was taken away by the display in Joan’s room.

  Mrs. Shirley was installed in a corner to watch. Susie, in her pretty blue frock, had fetched Lavinia, and the two had come racing in delight to see the dress parade, as Joy called it. But now Vinny, gazing enthralled at her new possessions, was almost bereft of words.

  “There isn’t more than you’ll need,” Joan said encouragingly. “As soon as we know when you’re starting, we’ll bring them to King’s Bottom and help you to pack them carefully. You’ll like to show them to Mrs. Jaikes.”

  “When be we goin’, Miss Joan?”

  A look passed between the elder girls. Another interview with Boniface, after a night’s rest for reflection on his part, had brought no better result. Indeed, Jen declared that she was sure he had wept all night.

  “Because he wants to go so dreadfully much,” she said sorrowfully. “If only he’d be brave and start!”

  “We aren’t quite sure, Vinny,” Joan said gravely. “Your Uncle Boniface doesn’t seem to feel ready for the journey.”

  Lavinia turned wide dark eyes of dismay upon her.

  “But he’ll go, Miss Joan? I know he’s an old ’un and he’s feart; he said it to me. But you’d help us, and we’d get along all right. Uncle Bonny must come! I couldn’t go on my lonesome!”

  “Of course he’ll come!” Jen cried, at sight of her distress. “We’ll make him go! Don’t look like that, Vinny! It will be all right! See what I’ve brought you for a good-bye present!”’ And she produced the string of brilliant red beads.

  “Oh, Miss Jen! Them’s beautiful!” Lavinia gasped. “Be they truly for me?”

  “Take them home with you now, if you like. But don’t lose them,” Jen cautioned her. “You’ll want to wear them with your new red dress. Susie, these are for you. They’ll look pretty with that nice frock.”

  “Oh, Miss Jen!” Susie’s cry of ecstasy went to Jen’s heart.

  “We can’t leave you out of everything,” she explained hastily. “You’re a jolly good sort, Susie Spindle. Put on the beads and let us see how you look.”

  “Try on your red ones too, Lavinia,” Janice suggested.

  Overjoyed, the girls hung the chains round their necks and admired the effect in the mirror Jen held before their delighted eyes.

  “You both look very nice,” Mrs. Shirley said, and they glanced at her gratefully.

  “We’ll tell you as soon as the date is fixed, Vinny,” Joan promised. “We’re going to have another talk with your uncle.”

  “Though what use it will be, I don’t know,” she said in despair, when Lavinia had gone, Susie escorting her part of the way, both chattering at full speed. “He seems quite unable to face the journey. That poor kid! What if we have to tell her she must go alone, after all?”

  “On her lonesome,” Jen added. “It would break her heart. If somebody’s heart has to be broken, I don’t see why it should be Vinny’s. Can’t we make Boniface go?”

  “How, Jen, dear?”

  “I’ve told you how,” Joy remarked.

  “Not your way. Couldn’t we bundle him into the car and whizz him off to Southampton and put him on the ship by force?”

  “I’m afraid we couldn’t. We can only try to persuade him,” Joan said despondently.

  “You’re very restless, Jandy Mac.” Joy eyed Janice severely. “Is it worry over Boniface, or is there something on your mind?”

  “I’m going to book my passage home. May I use your phone? I’ve been trying to decide on a date.”

  “Oh, Jandy! We don’t want to lose you!” Joan cried. “I know you have to go some day, but couldn’t you put it off a little longer?”

  “I’ve put it off several times already,” Janice protested. “I had a letter from Alec this morning, and he thinks I ought to be starting for home.”

  “But you can’t go till you’ve seen Boniface and Vinny safely off to Canada!” Jen wailed. “You’ve gone for voyages; you’ve sailed half-way round the world! You know all about ships. You almost made Boniface believe he could go. I was watching his face while you talked to him, and you nearly persuaded him. Oh, Jandy Mac, don’t let us down! You’re more likely to make him be sensible than anybody else!”

  Joan and Joy looked hopefully at Janice. “Do help us through, Jandy!” they spoke together.

  “I couldn’t be ready for a week or two. Boniface will have to decide soon,” Janice said. “There’s a berth I can have in a fortnight; they told me so in town. I’ll book that. Surely we’ll be able to bring him to the point by then! I’d like to see him and Lavinia safely aboard. Don’t look so blue, Joan! If the Babes in the Wood are still on our hands, I could cancel the berth and take my chance of another.”

  “That’s the only reason I can think of for hoping Boniface won’t give in!” Joan declared. “We don’t want to lose you, Jandy.”

  “Dear knows when we’ll see her again, once she’s a married lady,” Joy remarked. “I shan’t do anything to hurry old Boniface!”

  “We’ll talk to him again. Perhaps we can coax him to be brave, for Lavinia’s sake.” But Joan did not sound hopeful.

  They went back to the Abbey, firmly refusing to take Joy with them, in spite of her last assertion. She laughed and went to her piano. “Go without me, then! And good luck to your efforts. I’m not going to help to make the old chap go, if having him here will keep Jandy Mac here too. Let me know what happens!”

  The three came back presently, disappointed and even more hopeless than before.

  “It’s not a scrap of use!” Jen wailed. “He just cries and says he’ll stay here.”

  “He really was almost in tears,” Joan said. “He keeps saying: ‘If there was anybody else going, it would be different.’ And that’s quite futile.”

  “Send a courier with them,” Joy suggested. “You can hire people to do it, I believe. A paid travelling-companion, who would see them safely into their friends’ hands. I’ll help to pay.”

  “That’s generous!” Janice exclaimed, as if grasping at a new hope.

  “But it wouldn’t do, in this case,” Joan said decisively. “Boniface and Vinny would be so terrified.”

  “They’re terrified of everything,” Joy said indignantly. “We’d choose somebody nice and homely, of course.”

  Joan shook her head. “It would be a stranger. That wouldn’t be any comfort to our Babes in the Wood.”

  “Do you mind if I go to bed?” Janice said abruptly. “I’m tired of Boniface. We’ve done all we ca
n.”

  “Did you book that berth? Was it still available?” Joy asked.

  “Yes, it’s all right. I sail on the twenty-third.”

  “I shall be back at school,” Jen said sadly. “I wonder where Boniface and Vinny will be?”

  “Still where they are now. That old man doesn’t mean to go, unless somebody will go with him to hold his hand.” And Janice, disappointed and annoyed, went off to bed.

  CHAPTER XXX

  JANDY MAC IS NOBLE

  “I want to talk to you three,” Janice said.

  Mrs. Shirley was breakfasting in bed, as she often did. Janice looked heavy-eyed, and Joan asked anxiously, “Didn’t you sleep, Jandy?”

  “Sorry you booked that passage? Don’t you want to leave us?” Joy teased.

  “Have you had an idea for Boniface and Vinny?” Jen pleaded. “Oh, Jandy Mac! Have you thought of something?”

  “Jen’s nearest.” Janice pushed away her plate and spoke vehemently. “Listen, all of you! Would it help the Babes in the Wood, if I went with them as far as Montreal?”

  “Jandy Mac!” There was a triple shout.

  “How could you?” Joan cried. “You’re going to Sydney!”

  “Oh, if you only could!” Jen said longingly. “They like you. They’d love to go with you! But how could you go to Montreal?”

  “Go home the other way, do you mean?” Joy looked at Janice with keen interest. “Through America and by the Pacific?”

  “That’s what I mean. There are two ways to Australia, Joan and Jen. I’ve always come by Suez and the Mediterranean, but it’s quite possible to go across America and by the Pacific. In Alec’s last letter he suggested that I should go home that way and see our aunt and uncle in Montreal. Do you remember, when I came here to school last summer, it was because my aunt had gone to Canada to see her brother? I didn’t go; I came here instead. I’ve never met the Canadian bit of the family, but Alec knows them, and he thinks it would be a good plan if I went and saw them before marrying and settling down. And then, he says, I’d come home through the Islands and get some idea where I’d like to live. We aren’t going to stay in Sydney. His ship trades with Samoa and Fiji, and he’s promised me a South Sea Island for our home. It all sounds very sensible, but——” and she paused.