“A piano!” said Skye.
“It's just an upright,” said Jeffrey apologetically. “The big one's downstairs.”
“Can you play it?” Jane asked.
Jeffrey pulled a soccer ball out from under the bed, twirled it on his finger like a basketball star (he had learned that from Cagney), then headed it to Skye, who neatly caught it.
“Yeah, but not now Let's go back outside.”
“Aren't you any good?” asked Skye sympathetically. She understood all about that. Her father had been forced to cancel her clarinet lessons after the neighbors complained about the practicing.
“It's not that.”
“Please,” said Jane.
“Well, just a little bit, if you really want to hear.” Jeffrey lifted the piano lid and sat down on the stool. Skye and Jane put on their polite faces in preparation to hear awful playing, but what they heard instead was so beautiful that Skye thought Jeffrey was teasing them by playing a recording under the piano (but she checked and he wasn't).
Jeffrey broke off after just one minute and grabbed the soccer ball from Skye. “Okay, let's go.”
“WAIT!” shrieked Jane. “I want to hear more!”
“Why did you pretend you weren't any good?” said Skye.
Jeffrey's face glowed. “Do you really like it? That was Tchaikovsky, and I've only been practicing it for a while, and of course there should be a full orchestra, too. Music is what I really want to do. My music teacher at school says I'll be able to get into Juilliard, and then, if I'm good enough, I want to conduct someday. But Mother—”
“JEFFREY!”
Everyone froze and looked at each other. Skye recognized the voice. Jane could guess.
“She must have gotten home early,” said Jeffrey. He stuck his head out the door and yelled, “I'M IN MY ROOM.”
“COME DOWNSTAIRS, DEAR! I BROUGHT THE ROBINETTES HOME WITH ME.”
“Mrs. Robinette and her son, Teddy. Mother will expect me to entertain him,” said Jeffrey miserably. “You two better stay up here until I can ditch him and come back to sneak you out of the house.”
“Why can't we just come with you?” asked Skye.
“You don't want to meet Teddy. His idea of humor is flushing other kids' homework down the school toilet. I'll try to be quick. Maybe I can drown him in the lily pond.” Jeffrey slipped out the door.
“Well!” said Skye. She didn't like being stuck indoors because of a bully.
Jane wasn't thinking about bullies. She was standing at one of Jeffrey's windows, gazing out, just as he had on the day the Penderwicks first arrived. And just as Arthur would in her book, poor Arthur, longing desperately for a kind word from someone, from anyone. How would Sabrina Starr first appear to Arthur, way up here at his high window? Jane hadn't decided yet. Could Sabrina pilot a blimp? No, blimps were too big and would get stuck in the trees. A helicopter would be impressive, but also noisy Sabrina wouldn't want Ms. Horriferous—that was what Jane had named Arthur's evil kidnapper—to hear her coming. But what about a hot-air balloon? Yes! Sabrina could rescue Arthur in a hot-air balloon!
“Jane. Jane!” said Skye. “EARTH TO JANE!”
“What?”
Skye was at another window. “Come here and look. We can climb out and down that big tree.”
“Jeffrey said to wait for him.”
“It could take him hours to get rid of that Teddy jerk. Help me open this.”
Together they pushed the heavy old window up as far as it would go and removed the screen. They tossed the soccer ball out the window, then Skye climbed up onto the windowsill, hopped out and onto a thick branch, and looked down. She wasn't afraid of heights, but it was three long stories to the ground. She grabbed another branch for support and peered around for Jane.
“Where are you?” she whispered.
“I'm writing a note for Jeffrey,” said Jane from inside the room. “How about: Flew away, see you later?”
“I don't care what you write. Just hurry up.”
A minute later, Jane was next to her on the branch. Carefully they edged over to the trunk, then shinnied down to the next branch, and then another, and then another, until they came to the lowest branch. They were still fifteen feet from the ground.
“Now what?” asked Jane.
“I don't know,” said Skye.
“We could go back up.”
“Give me time. I'll think of something.”
Skye could have thought all day without getting them down from that tree. It was lucky for them that Batty's visit to the rabbits had ended five minutes earlier, which meant that Batty and Rosalind were on their way back to the cottage to tell Hound all about it. But more important, it also meant that Cagney was back at work in the gardens. Jane spotted him pushing his wheelbarrow toward a bed of dahlias about twenty feet from the tree.
“Hi, Cagney,” she called.
Cagney turned around in a circle, trying to locate the source of the voice.
“Up here,” said Jane.
Then he looked up and laughed. “What are you two doing?”
“We're sort of stuck,” said Skye.
“Hold on.” He disappeared. Moments later, he was back with a long ladder, which he leaned against the tree trunk. Skye, then Jane, clambered down safely.
“You have our undying gratitude for rescuing us from a fate worse than death,” said Jane.
“And could you tell Jeffrey we escaped?” said Skye. “And that he should come over to the cottage for soccer practice when he gets rid of that Teddy Robinette kid?”
“Actually, Cagney, you might be able to help Jeffrey with Teddy,” said Jane.
“Jeffrey's trying to drown him,” said Skye.
“I'll take care of it,” said Cagney, and Skye and Jane slipped away with the soccer ball.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Borrowed Finery
WHEN JEFFREY DIDN'T RETURN to the cottage that afternoon, Jane worked herself into a frenzy imagining that he had gone ahead and drowned Teddy Robinette and that even as she and Skye were happily playing soccer, Jeffrey was being thrown into a dank and dismal cell. Skye told Jane she was an idiot, but she had her own worries. She feared that Mrs. Tifton had discovered the sisters' visit to his bedroom and forbidden Jeffrey to ever see them again.
So it was a great relief for both of them when Jeffrey arrived at the cottage the next morning. The sisters were still cleaning up from breakfast. Rosalind washed, Skye dried, Jane put away the plates and glasses, and Batty stood on a stool and sorted the silverware into the proper slots in the drawer.
“What happened?” said Jane. “Did you kill him?”
“Did your mother kill you?” said Skye.
“Neither. Teddy tripped over a rake and cut his leg and made such a big fuss about it that Mother made me stay inside with him all afternoon and watch television so he could keep his stupid leg elevated. But he won't be coming back. I told him that if he ever did, I'd tell his mother about how he cheated on all his math tests last year,” said Jeffrey. “Oh, and Cagney's going to hang a rope ladder from that branch where you two got stuck, one you can roll up when you're not using it so nobody'll notice it from the ground.”
“Great,” said Skye. “Now we'll always have an easy escape.”
“And Jeffrey will be able to escape that way, too,” said Jane.
“Why would I have to?”
“Oh, you never know.”
“Dry the glasses, Skye,” said Rosalind. “Don't just hand them to Jane.”
Skye rolled her eyes. “Drying is a waste of time when we're going to use everything again at lunch.”
“Anyway, Churchie's invited all of you over for gingerbread. Mother is out again, in case anyone cares.”
“What's this about gingerbread?” Mr. Penderwick had come into the kitchen to inspect Batty's silverware drawer. It was her great pride to sort everything correctly.
“Churchie makes great gingerbread, and she wants everyone to come eat it. You too, Mr. Pender
wick, if you want,” said Jeffrey.
“Perfect again, Batty,” said Mr. Penderwick, and lifted her down from the stool. “Thank you, Jeffrey, but Cagney's already asked me to inspect the peonies he's hybridizing.”
“May we go, Daddy?” asked Jane.
“They're not driving you crazy yet, Jeffrey?” asked Mr. Penderwick.
“Oh, no, sir. Well, except for Skye.” Jeffrey nimbly evaded the punch Skye aimed at his arm.
“All right, then. Vade in pace, filiae.”
“That's Latin,” said Jane.
“I know,” said Jeffrey.
Churchie was just taking the gingerbread out of the oven when the five children arrived. It smelled so delicious that everyone immediately forgot they had eaten breakfast.
“There you all are!” said Churchie. “Let me look at you. Here's my old friend, Jane, and this must be Rosalind. And Skye. But didn't Batty come along?”
Rosalind pulled Batty out from behind the door.
“Oh, my! Each prettier than the next,” said Churchie.
There was a knock at the door and Churchie let in Harry the Tomato Man. Today his shirt was red, but just like his green one, it had HARRY'S TOMATOES embroidered across the pocket.
“More tomatoes,” he said, and set a large cardboard box on the counter.
“Thanks, Harry,” said Churchie. “I see you showed up just in time for gingerbread again. Girls, meet the man with the most sensitive nose in Massachusetts.”
“Don't listen to her. She'd die of mortification if people didn't show up on gingerbread day,” said Harry. “Well, Jeffrey, I hear you've got a wild new bunch of friends here. Cagney's been telling me all about girls sneaking through hedges and hiding in urns and getting stuck in trees. And Farmer Vangelder down the road saw some kids messing around with his bull the other day, but they ran away before he could yell at them.”
“Oh, that wasn't us with the bull!” said Rosalind, while Jeffrey tried not to laugh.
Harry glanced over at Skye, who managed to look as though she'd never messed around with a bull in her life. “Well, maybe not,” he said. “But you Penderwicks are sure livening the old place up.”
“And a good thing, too,” said Churchie, cutting huge blocks of gingerbread and putting them onto plates. “Now sit, everyone, and eat.”
The Penderwicks peered around, a little overwhelmed, for the kitchen was very large and grand, a kitchen fit for kings, as Jane said later. Besides the normal oven in which Churchie had made the gingerbread, there were two others as big as ovens in restaurants. And there were four refrigerators, three stainless-steel sinks, two long butcher-block tables, and what seemed like miles of counter space. Where should they sit in such a place? But then Jeffrey led them to a sunny nook—as cozy as Churchie herself—where there was a small table with a checkered tablecloth and benches on each side. Everyone piled in, and Churchie served not only gingerbread but whipped cream and strawberries to go on top.
The Penderwicks had never had gingerbread so scrumptious, and even Jeffrey and Harry, who had been treated to Churchie's special recipe many times, went through two pieces each in a flash.
“This is delicious, Churchie, thank you,” said Rosalind, wiping whipped cream off Batty's face and shirt.
“Thank you, dear. And wait until you taste the birthday cake I'm planning for next week,” said Churchie.
“Who for?” asked Skye.
“Why, Jeffrey, of course. He's turning eleven. Jeffrey, haven't you invited the girls to your birthday dinner?” asked Churchie.
Jeffrey choked on his third piece of gingerbread. It wasn't until Skye pounded him on the back that he could talk at all.
“They don't want to come,” he sputtered. “It'll be in the formal dining room, with candles and lace napkins and antique china, and old Dexter will be there.”
“What Jeffrey means to say is that Mrs. Tifton's gentleman friend, Mr. Dupree, will be at the party,” said Churchie.
“You mean her boyfriend?” said Skye.
“Mrs. Tifton has a boyfriend?” said Jane.
“That's unbeliev—” said Skye.
“Your party doesn't sound so bad,” Rosalind interrupted. “Lace napkins aren't the end of the world. If you want us, we'll come.”
“They'd have to wear fancy dresses,” said Harry slyly.
“Mother would definitely expect you to be all dressed up.”
“Dressed up!” Skye was indignant. “That's ridiculous. It's summer.”
“Besides, we didn't bring any dresses with us,” said Rosalind. “And we can't ask Daddy to buy us all new clothes for one party.”
“You can't come, then. Too bad,” said Jeffrey happily.
“Hold on a minute. I have an idea,” said Churchie. “Finish up the gingerbread, everyone, then Harry can get back to his tomatoes. The rest of us are going up into the attic.”
If the downstairs of Arundel Hall was like a museum, the attic was like a treasure chest. Everywhere the girls looked, they saw the most wonderful things, until they looked somewhere else and saw something even more wonderful. Stacks and stacks, in row after row— carpets, mirrors, brass and silver trays, painted screens, bookcases stuffed full of books, dolls of all shapes and sizes, bureaus, toy soldiers, cradles, walking sticks and umbrellas, sleds, painters' easels, vases, train sets, old cameras, brocade curtains, and much, much more, so much that you could get lost in there and never care about finding the way out.
While the sisters were still oohing and aahing, Churchie said, “Come, Rosalind, you and I have work to do. Jeffrey, show the others around.”
Churchie led Rosalind down an aisle with bureaus on one side and plump couches on the other, then turned left and kept going between marble garden ornaments and tall piles of magazines. One more turn at the lamps with stained-glass shades, and they reached a wide-open area full of clothing, hundreds and hundreds of dresses, suits, shirts, gowns, coats, all hanging in long rows. Rosalind had never seen so many clothes in one place, not even in the Boston department stores.
“Mrs. Tifton has kept just about every piece of clothing she's ever worn,” said Churchie. “And every piece her mother, Mrs. Framley, ever wore. And way in the back is a section of her grandmother's clothes.”
“They're all so beautiful,” said Rosalind, wandering past a rainbow of summer dresses.
“Go over two more rows and look at Mrs. Framley's evening gowns.”
Rosalind found the gowns, dozens of them from long ago, taffeta and lace and satin and velvet, luxury beyond measure. “Oh, my! What did she wear them all for?”
“The Framleys used to give the most fabulous parties. It was long before I came here—I was hired after Jeffrey was born—but Harry's lived in this neighborhood his whole life, and he told me about it. He would help park the cars when the society people came up from New York City. Then there'd be breakfast for thirty on the terrace and formal dinners in the evenings, with live music and dancing after. That was all when Mrs. Tifton was still just a girl. She was the only child, you know, and came late, long after her parents had given up hope for a baby. They worshiped her, brought her up like a little duchess.” Churchie had been talking to Rosalind from several rows away. But now she appeared from behind the coats, carrying a striped dress. She held it up to Rosalind. “Yes, this shade of coral is perfect for you. I'll just take it in a little here and there and shorten it to bring it up to date.”
“I can't wear one of Mrs. Tifton's dresses,” Rosalind protested.
“Why not? I already told Mrs. Tifton we were inviting you, and she'll never recognize the dresses. Who could remember all these?”
“But, Churchie, even if that's true, we can't ask you to do all the sewing, and I don't know how.”
“Don't think twice about that. I haven't had a chance to sew for girls since my daughter was small, and now she's married and living in Boston and keeps having boys. This'll be great fun for me. Here, hold this while I look for something for your sisters.”
/> Rosalind carried the dress over to a big mirror leaning against the wall and looked shyly at her reflection. She had never worn such an elegant, grown-up dress. And it was the right color for her. She memorized the details for Anna—soft linen, high waist, sleeveless, round collar, and, Rosalind's favorite part, cloth-covered buttons all the way down the back.
“Churchie, where are you?” she called out.
“Follow the blouses.”
Rosalind walked past the blouses, then stopped suddenly at the sight of a gorgeous white dress hanging all by itself at the end of a row. Through its plastic covering she could see yards of satin and tulle sewn all over with tiny pearls. “Oh, is this Mrs. Tifton's wedding gown?”
“Not hers, her mother's,” said Churchie, poking her head around a row of silk nightgowns. “I doubt Mrs. Tifton had a fancy wedding gown, and even if she did, she'd never have kept it. That marriage was a Big Mistake and lasted less than a year.”
“What happened?”
“Well, you have to go back a little. Mrs. Framley died when young Brenda—Mrs. Tifton, that is—was only seventeen, and the General went into deep mourning. He stopped talking to anyone, even his daughter. The visitors from New York stopped coming, the parties stopped, everything stopped. It was no life for a teenager. As soon as Brenda could, she escaped by enrolling in a small college in Boston. She met a young man there and they were secretly married before she was twenty years old. I guess it was her way of rebelling against her father. He was strict, the old General.”
“Where is Mr. Tifton now?”
“His name wasn't Tifton. The General didn't want Brenda to keep her married name after the divorce, and Brenda—she was just as stubborn as he was— refused to go back to being called Framley She didn't want people to wonder whether or not she'd been married, because, remember, she was very young, and she was pregnant. So they compromised on Tifton, which was the General's mother's last name. I don't know Jeffrey's father's real name, and I certainly don't know where he is. I don't think Jeffrey himself knows any of that either.”
“Poor Jeffrey.”
“Yes.” Churchie plucked a red dress off a hanger and vigorously shook out some imaginary wrinkles, as though by doing so she could straighten up Jeffrey's life. “Anyway, Jeffrey's father left before he was born. Some say Brenda got tired of him and threw him out, and some say the General paid him to go away because he wasn't good enough to marry a Framley I do know that Brenda came home to Arundel to have Jeffrey and stayed on here with her father. The baby— Jeffrey—brought the General back to life. He adored the boy, called him the son he'd never had. And then he died, too, when Jeffrey was only seven.”
A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy Page 6
