Strangers at the Abbey

by Elsie J. Oxenham

  “She’ll give it up,” Nesta said, as she went with Beatrice from the room.

  “It’s a jolly good thing for the Dram that it has Muriel,” said Beetle. “Speedwell may not act herself, but she sees things all round and keeps everybody straight.”

  “That’s why she was such a good Queen, although she’s so quiet. I’m not half good enough to come after her,” Queen Honesty admitted.

  “Oh, rot! Don’t be footling! You wouldn’t have been chosen, if you weren’t good enough,” her maid-of-honour told her bracingly.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE THIRD-IN-COMMAND

  Several people came to school next morning with disturbed and anxious minds.

  Rykie was annoyed to find no message waiting, asking her to see Muriel at once. In spite of warning from Jen—“Don’t be an ass! They’ll have to think about it!”—she had expected her impression on the Dramatic Society to be so deep and emphatic that no thinking would be necessary. She was not sent for, and she was disappointed and inclined to be snappy to everyone.

  Muriel had spent an unhappy night and was not looking forward to the day’s events, and she knew her work was unprepared. She could not afford to let it suffer, for she had an exam before her. The affair must be settled as soon as possible. But how?

  Aileen decided it for her. She had had an almost sleepless night and she looked tired, but her mind was made up, and, finding Muriel at break, she spoke definitely.

  “Speedwell, I can’t take that part. The rest must do their bit and be nice to Rykie; that’s nothing to do with me. But I can’t be Jaques; I should feel awful, after all this fuss.”

  Muriel knit her brows. “I believe you would, Aily. I’m terribly sorry about it, but it really isn’t anyone’s fault. This child has turned up and she’s good.”

  “And she’s made up her mind to have my part! Oh, she’s better than I’d ever be; I know that quite well. It’s just bad luck that I’m the victim; it might have been one of the others. If she’d happened to know Rosalind, I suppose she’d have expected that to be given to her! How did she happen to be so ready with Jaques, by the way?”

  “Nesta says Jen Robins had told her, when she first arrived, that we hadn’t chosen Jaques; we asked you next day, and Jen told Rykie she’d lost her chance, but apparently Rykie didn’t see it that way.”

  Aileen looked at her. “She’d made up her mind to have the part. It’s rather beastly, you know. Even now I don’t feel quite sure that it wouldn’t be better if we ignored her.”

  “I’ve been wondering about that, and all the other points of view. It might be the best thing for Rykie herself.”

  “For her morals,” Aileen said grimly. “But I can’t do Jaques now, and I don’t suppose anyone else would like the part.”

  “What did your people say?”

  “Mother said I must do as I think right, but she agreed that I wouldn’t be happy in the play after this. Father was disappointed; he’d been so pleased! I was terribly sorry to upset him. He said some stiff things about Rykie. My cousin Carry came in, and she was furious when I said I’d have to give up the part. She thinks I’m quite mad. You remember her, don’t you? She was Joy Shirley’s maid, and they had some sort of row. Carry wanted to be Queen, but Joan was chosen to follow Joy and then you came after Joan, so Carry was never Queen. She’s had a grudge against the school ever since. She says I’m an idiot not to hang on to Jaques.”

  “All the more because Rykie comes from the Abbey, of course,” Muriel agreed. “Shall I speak to the others?”

  “Yes, tell them I can’t do Jaques now. Don’t let them plague me!”

  Muriel sent word by a junior to those of the cast who were not in her form, and they met after morning school to hear her report. Aileen was not present, and Muriel, after telling of her decision, warned the rest not to talk to her about it.

  “She’s withdrawn for the sake of the play and the school. She’s feeling sore, naturally. Leave her alone! There was no other way; she felt that as clearly as we did.”

  “She’s been a brick over this mess,” Jennifer said.

  “More than the Rykie child has been,” Gillian growled. “Oh, well, we’ll have to put up with her! There’s no need to like her just because we act with her.”

  Gillian’s attitude was that of most of the others. Rykie was aware of it, but was merely amused. Sent for by Muriel at last, she went jubilantly.

  “You’re joining the Dramatic, I suppose?” In spite of herself, the ex-Queen’s tone was on the curt side.

  “Yes, please, Muriel. I’m very keen.” Rykie’s eyes snapped.

  “We’ll be pleased to have you.” Muriel struggled to speak more cordially. “As it happens, we can use you at once, if you’d like to be in the new play. Aileen Carter feels she won’t have time to do Jaques, so, as you know the longer speeches, we’ve decided to offer the part to you.”

  Rykie’s eyes gleamed again. But she only said, very demurely, “Thank you. I’ll like Jaques. I’ll do my best.”

  “Miss Cameron, who is producing the play, speaks well of your elocution. She told us to decide on the cast, subject to her approval; I don’t suppose she will object to having you in place of Aileen. We shall have a reading on Monday, so be prepared to stay after school for an hour.”

  “Yes, Muriel. And thank you.” And Rykie danced off in wild jubilation to tell the news to her friends. They had no other representative in the play, and they were properly impressed.

  “And what’s going to happen to me?” Jen demanded wrathfully, as they rode home together. “What am I to do for an hour, while you’re spouting with the Dramatic?”

  “You’d better go home. I can ride alone all right. It’s a silly idea, making us go together. I shall have lots of rehearsals.”

  “I shall collect a crowd and have some dancing,” Jen vowed. “Not many of us are in the Dramatic, and the girls always like to dance. Joan won’t let us ride alone.”

  “Then you’ll have to wait for me. I’m going to be really important to the play,” Rykie said happily. “I’ll make something big of Jaques, and he’s not a small part, in any case.”

  Jen said no more. She liked to watch plays, but she did not care about the inner working or the preparations.

  “I’ve got the part!” Rykie’s triumphant shout rang out as she entered the house.

  Joy turned from her piano, her brows raised. “Oh? So you’ve bagged it, have you? I wonder the rest will put up with you.”

  “What about Aileen?” Joan asked.

  “She hasn’t time. That’s what she says.”

  “Do you mean to say Aileen Carter gave up the part?” Joy demanded. “Aileen Carter? There must be some mistake!”

  “How splendid of her!” Joan exclaimed. “That has made things easy for everybody. What a brick!”

  “But a Carter give up something, for other people’s sake? Impossible! Unheard of!” Joy cried.

  “Oh, Joy! It’s awfully decent of Aileen!” Jen urged.

  “Oh, frightfully, terribly decent! But Aileen must be jolly different from the rest of her family.”

  “She’s only Carry’s cousin, Joy,” Joan reminded her.

  “She must be an unusual sort of Carter,” Joy said, turning to her music again. “Well, I am surprised!”

  “I’m not much use to you, Joan-Queen.” Jen found Joan in the Abbey during the evening. “Rykie’s quite different from me; she doesn’t like the things I like and she doesn’t want me for company. She’ll have to stay after school for rehearsals, and she says she can ride home alone. She’s made heaps of friends and they’re not my crowd; and now she’ll be taken up by the Dramatic. I’m outside all the things she cares about. Seems to me you’d better send me back to school again.”

  “But if we want you here, Jenny-Wren?”

  “Oh, do you really? What use am I to you?”

  “All the use in the world. We can’t have Rykie riding so far alone. Frankly, I don’t trust her. I li
ke to know you’re with her.”

  “That’s nice of you, but I don’t see why?” Jen asked humbly.

  “She’s unsteady,” Joan said decidedly. “She’s wild; she might have a sudden idea and go off to do some mad thing. You’re balanced and sensible: you have decent principles behind you; she hasn’t been brought up as you have. If she tried to do anything silly on the way home you’d bring her safely back to us.”

  “What could she do?” Jen asked, greatly intrigued. “And I don’t believe I am like that, you know.”

  Joan laughed. “I think you are. I’d trust you anywhere, or with anybody. As for Rykie, I haven’t the slightest idea, but I’m sure she’d never stop to think of our feelings, if there was anything she wanted to do. She might go home with somebody for the evening, and it would never occur to her to phone to tell us where she was, and Mother would be terribly worried.”

  “Oh, I thought you meant she’d run away with a circus, if she saw one.”

  “She might do that, or she might go to the pictures or the theatre. I’m quite sure she wouldn’t stop to consider us, or her prep. Please stand by her and bring her safely home!”

  “I could get on with my prep and have more time with you at night. Or we might have some dancing,” Jen said thoughtfully. “I say, Joan! Do you suppose I could teach anybody anything?”

  Joan looked at her in amusement. “I don’t see why not. If it’s something you know very well and like very much, so that you want to pass it on, I’m sure you could teach. Who, and what, Jenny-Wren?”

  “Country-dancing, of course. I’ve often thought I’d like to try, later on, in our village at home. I believe the kiddies would love it.”

  “Of course they’d love it. You think you could collect some of our juniors and start on them?”

  “You and the President teach the Club, but perhaps I could get them ready for you,” Jen said modestly. “Do you think a few juniors would like to have a try?”

  “I believe they would. But if it’s just the babes, what about singing-games? Kiddies love those, and they’d be a splendid preparation for country-dancing.”

  Jen’s face lit up. “ ‘Roman Soldiers’ and ‘When I was a Schoolgirl’ and ‘Looby Light’—you mean those?”

  “And ‘Sally go round the Moon’ and ‘Old Roger’ and ‘Mulberry Bush’; there are plenty of them. You wouldn’t need a pianist, for you’d all sing the tunes. Shall I ask the Head if you may use the small hall on those days when Rykie has rehearsals?”

  “Oh, would you, Joan?”

  “Then when you’ve had three or four times with your children I could come and see how you’re getting on. I expect Cicely and I will be very grateful to you, when your class is old enough to join the Hamlet Club. They’ll have a good dancing step and nice movement, and they’ll know how to work together as a team and how to respond to music. You’ll be really useful to us; our Third-in-Command, in fact.”

  Jen’s face glowed with happiness. “I shall enjoy waiting for Rykie now!” she said with enthusiasm.

  “And when you go home to teach your village, you’ll know how to start,” Joan agreed.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A LETTER FROM BELLE

  Joy unkindly gave a shout of laughter at thought of Jen as a teacher.

  “I can stop if I find I can’t do it,” Jen said sturdily. “I believe it will be fun.”

  “It will be just as much fun for you as Jaques will be for Rykie,” Joan asserted.

  Rykie laughed scornfully. “Kids’ stuff! But it will give her something to do, if she has to wait for me. There isn’t any need; it’s mad.”

  Joy turned to her. “I suppose you feel you’ve now started on your stage career?”

  “I’m going to make a success of this part,” Rykie said defiantly. “If the local newspapers put in a report I mean to be mentioned. They ought to report the play; it’s a big school.”

  “There will be reports, and pictures. You’ll love that,” Joy remarked.

  “Joan and Joy have been in the papers more than once, because of being Queens. There are always reports of the May Day dancing,” Jen told her.

  “Do you really mean to make the stage your career?” Joy was following out her line of thought.

  “Of course I do!” Rykie cried. “When there are bits in the papers about my early life, they’ll say: ‘She was a great success in school theatricals, and was particularly noticed by the Press for her excellent performance as Jaques.’ ”

  “See that it is excellent, then! Well, if that’s to be your future, my dear kid, I’ve some advice for you. There’s one thing you’ll need, wherever you are and whatever you act, and that’s tact. Without it you’ll have a brute of a time. Begin to practise it right now! You’ve a marvellous opportunity, for I don’t mind betting the rest of the Dramatic loathe you for the way you butted in and pinched that part from Aileen; I should myself. You’ll need all your tact to get along well with those girls. Make them like you, if you can; I’ll think you’re clever, if you manage it. It will be useful to you all your life.” And she went off for an evening tramp on the hills.

  Joan said decidedly, “Joy’s right, Rykie. It’s a chance to practise a thing that will always be useful to you.”

  “They’ll like me all right, if I do the part well and help the play a lot.”

  “They’ll like you more if you do it in the right way.”

  “What do they mean by tact?” Rykie demanded of Jen, as they went up to bed later on.

  “Thinking of other people and not hurting their feelings, I expect,” Jen said soberly. “If you go telling those seniors how to act Orlando or Touchstone, they aren’t going to love you very much.”

  “But if I see things that should be different?” Rykie argued. “I can’t say nothing!”

  “Leave it to Miss Cameron; you aren’t producing the play. If something really seems too awful for words, ask her privately if it couldn’t be done another way; don’t say it in front of everybody—that would be tactful. And don’t show off, whatever you do.”

  Rykie changed the subject. “Will you really like playing footling games with kids?”

  “I rather think I shall love it.” Jen herself was placidly tactful. “And they aren’t footling. Some of them are very old and historical; ‘London Bridge,’ for one. We had a lecture on them last term. They’re great fun to do.”

  “If you’re five years old, perhaps. But you’re fifteen.”

  “Oh, but I’m going to be teacher and stand on a chair and shout, as Cicely Hobart does, when she teaches us new dances.”

  Rykie shrugged her shoulders. “Can’t say I envy you!”

  “I don’t envy you, so that’s all right,” Jen said cheerfully.

  “How are things going at school?” Joan asked, a few days later, as she wandered in the Abbey with Jen.

  “Not too bad. Rykie’s showing quite a lot of sense, according to Beetle. She tells me about rehearsals, or Nesta does.”

  “Our little actress isn’t telling everybody where they’re wrong? That’s what I was afraid of.”

  Jen chuckled. “So were they. Nesta says they were a bit scared for fear she’d keep shoving in. But she doesn’t, Joan. It’s all right, and they’re getting on with her quite well. They call her that—what you said, ‘our little actress.’ She knows, and she likes it.”

  “It’s the only outstanding thing about her,” Joan agreed.

  “They say she’s awfully good, and they think she’ll look marvellous as Jaques, because she’s so fair. She’ll wear black, because he’s melancholy, and her hair will look lovely, as it’s nearly white.”

  “She ought to tuck it under a cap.”

  “Oh, but that would waste it! She’ll look a picture in black, with it hanging round her face. There’s no reason why Jaques shouldn’t be fair.”

  “I suppose not. And your new class?”

  “Oh, it’s not a class! We just play games. I don’t call it teaching; I don’t think
I could teach. I keep forgetting I’m in charge and leaping off my chair and joining in. The kiddies like it, Joan.”

  “I’m sure they do. You like it too,” and Joan glanced at her eager face.

  “It’s fun. I love it! They’re dear kids. And it gives me something to do while Rykie’s busy. But it’s more than that.”

  “Yes,” Joan assented. “I’m glad you thought of it. Some day I’m coming to watch your class.”

  Coming in from school one day in the following week, Rykie pounced on an air-mail letter from America.

  “From Belle! Now I’ll know all about Hollywood!”

  “Not from that flimsy thing,” Joy remarked. “She can’t say much in that.”

  Rykie slit the letter open very carefully. “She can say a lot. I’ll tell you presently.”

  She buried herself in her letter, neglecting her meal. Jen, very hungry, fell upon bread, butter, scones and cake, glancing at her companion from time to time.

  “Belle must like Hollywood,” she said. “You look completely thrilled. But your tea’s getting cold.”

  Rykie took a hurried drink and then looked at her, her face ablaze with excitement.

  “She loves it. Everyone’s been nice, and she’s had tests, and they’re all pleased with her. The place is marvellous, and—oh, Joan! She wants me to go to her quite soon! She’s sure she can find me a job when I’m old enough, and perhaps at once. There are often junior parts and she knows I’d do well. Oh, do you think I could go?”

  “We’d get rid of her that way,” Jen said to herself.

  “It would be most unsuitable, at your age, my dear,” Mrs. Shirley said with unexpected firmness. “We must think of your future. You are only half educated. Perhaps in two or three years——”

  “Oh, Aunt Margaret!” Rykie wailed. “I couldn’t wait as long as that!”

  “Does Belle say anything about sending money to pay for your journey?” Joan asked practically. “I know she couldn’t enclose anything in an air-mail letter.”