Stowaways in the Abbey Read online

  Stowaways in the Abbey

  by Elsie J. Oxenham

  First published in 1940

  This edition published by Reading Essentials

  Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany

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  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Stowaways in the Abbey

  by ELSIE J. OXENHAM

  TO

  MY FATHER

  JOHN OXENHAM

  WITH LOVE AND THANKS

  FOR SYMPATHY AND ENCOURAGEMENT

  CHAPTER I

  A BLOW FOR JEN

  Jen Robins sat up in bed with a jerk.

  “I’ll go and tell Joan now—this minute! It’s seven o’clock; she’s sure to be awake. Gosh! I am in a mess! I must have been pitching about in my sleep. I don’t remember dreaming anything very dreadful!”

  She regarded her dishevelled condition severely. Her thick pigtail was loosened and she was shrouded in long yellow locks. She chuckled and began to plait it hurriedly. “Can’t go to call on Joan looking like that! I am a sight! Jack would call me Rapunzel again. That’s better; I look more civilised now.” She flung back the heavy plait and reached for her blue dressing-gown and slippers.

  She was spending the week-end at the Hall, with the Shirleys, the red-haired cousins who had been her first friends at school. Though Jen—Jenny-Wren to her chums,—was only fourteen and Joan and Joy Shirley were seventeen, the friendship was real and deep, and Jen, who was a boarder at school, had already paid many visits to the Hall. She was also maid-of-honour to Joan, last year’s May Queen, and she was burning with eagerness to share with Joan the great thought which had seized her mind while she was still only half awake.

  “It’s the idea of the century,” she murmured, her blue eyes dancing. “I couldn’t even dress, let alone eat any breakfast, till I’ve talked to Joan. I hope her headache’s better; she felt rotten last night.”

  She crept along the corridor to the door of Joan’s room. To her dismay, it opened as she reached it, and Mrs. Shirley came out.

  “Oh, Auntie Shirley! How you made me jump!” Jen cried. The relationship was one of adoption only, but her affection for Joan’s mother was unbounded. “I want to speak to Joan,” Jen hurried on. “Is she all right this morning?”

  “I’m afraid not. No, don’t go in, Jen.” Mrs. Shirley looked worried. “Joan’s head is still bad and she doesn’t want to talk. Don’t go to Joy either, for a little while. I shall send for the doctor and ask him to look at them both.”

  Jen’s face fell. “Oh, what hard luck! They’ll be all right by this afternoon, when Jack comes, won’t they? You won’t have to put her off?”

  “We couldn’t let Jack come unless the girls are better. We’ll hope for the best. I’d be sorry to disappoint you and Jack.”

  “Is Joy’s cold still bad? She thought perhaps going to bed early would stop it,” Jen said anxiously. “It was dreadful at tea-time, wasn’t it?”

  Mrs. Shirley agreed, her troubled look deepening. “I hoped we should be able to check it, but she is quite ill this morning. Joy isn’t strong, in herself, though she’s much better than she was in London. It was on her account we came to live in the country, and I’m always worried when she has any illness. This time I’m afraid—but we can’t be sure till the doctor has been. I may be wrong; I hope I am.”

  “Afraid of what?” Jen exclaimed. “Joy isn’t going to be really ill, is she? It’s not pneumonia, or anything like that? Poor old Joy!”

  “It’s not as bad as that,” Mrs. Shirley said hastily. “Go and dress, Jen. I’ll tell you more when the doctor has been. But don’t go to either of the girls just now.”

  “Give Joan my love; and Joy, too, of course,” Jen added. “Odd that they should both be ill at once! Horribly bad luck on us all! I’ll do anything I can to help, Auntie Shirley. We’ll have to put Jack off; it’s rotten, but you can’t have an extra visitor just now. Will you want me to go back to school?”

  Mrs. Shirley smiled at the anxious little face. “I can’t tell you yet, Jen dear. I’ll phone for the doctor; then we shall know.”

  Jen went soberly back to her room. “What a blow! And Jacky-boy invited for the week-end, for a special celebration for her birthday! I can’t help wishing Joan and Joy had chosen another time to have colds.”

  She dressed, and brushed her long hair, plaiting it in two smooth tails, then flung them back and stood gazing out at the lawn and the glimpse of the Abbey ruins above the trees. “Such a gorgeous day! If Jack hadn’t had to go to school for games club committee this morning, she’d have come with me last night. If she’d been here they might not have sent her home, but as she isn’t here I don’t believe they’ll let her come, if the girls are really ill. They may send me away too. How—how grim! It was to be such a marvellous week-end, with Jack and me, and Joan and Joy! I had such topping plans. As for my new idea, it will have to wait, that’s all.”

  Feeling very lonely, she went down to breakfast to join Mrs. Shirley, who was too burdened and anxious to talk much.

  “Go into the garden, Jen dear, or into the Abbey,” Mrs. Shirley said, as she rose. “The doctor will be here in an hour, and after he has gone we shall be able to make plans.”

  “Are the girls any better? Has Joan had any brekker?” Jen asked, full of sympathy.

  “Just a cup of tea. Joy doesn’t want even that.”

  “They must be feeling rotten!”

  “I’m afraid they are,” Mrs. Shirley smiled slightly. She was becoming more certain what was the matter with every visit to the girls, but there was no use in breaking the news to Jen till her fears were confirmed.

  Jen fetched her jersey and went bare-headed across the lawn, her face grave. Jack’s visit was sure to be cancelled; would her own share the same fate? Would a few hours see her back at school?

  She went down a path between rhododendron bushes and unlocked an ancient gate. It led her into a tiny garden, filled with blue pansies and yellow snapdragons and low red roses. Looking down on these were wonderful old windows, set in a high wall, and below the windows a doorway, leading to a dark stone passage.

  Jen went soberly through the garden and the tunnel and came out on the sunny green lawn in the midst of the Abbey ruins, which Joan called the cloister garth. On her right was the beautiful doorway of the chapter-house, through which she glanced to the fields beyond, as the back wall was broken half away and covered with moss. On her left were the entrance gate and the remains of the cloisters; above the tunnel by which she had come stood the great refectory, with high Perpendicular windows looking over the garth.

  Jen crossed the grass to the sunny wall opposite, which screened the site of the vanished church. A scrap of stone-carving marked the place where the Abbot’s seat had been, in the days when the cloisters had gone right round the garth. Just under the seat, in the grass, lay a round furry heap, soft and warm in the sunshine.

  Jen flung herself down and put her head on the big cat. “Oh, Mummy! Mother Superior, isn’t it ghastly? Your missus can’t come to see you—Joan’s ill! And I’m afraid they’ll send me back to school! Oh, dear old thing, I could weep, if I was that sort of creature!”

  The Mother Superior looked at her and gave a questioning “P-r-r?” A shaggy grey kitten of eighteen months old pranced up, shaking his long fur, and began to play with the yellow plaits that lay on the grass.

  Jen whisked them away indignantly. “Timmy,
I’ve just done my hair! You think I have these for your benefit, don’t you? My child, I only keep them to please Daddy; he says that after having so many boys, as he’s had a girl at last he wants her to look like a girl. If I had my choice, I’d be as bobbed as Jack. I wonder if perhaps in four years Daddy won’t mind so much? When it comes to putting it in a bun and being a stodgy grown-up, I should think he’d be glad for me to cut it off. I’m the youngest; they’ll feel terribly elderly! I believe it would be curly if I cut it; Daddy might like to have me looking like a little girl. That’s something to hope for! Oh, Timmy, have you heard the awful news?”

  She sat up, gazing across the garth with anxious eyes. The Mother Superior looked at her sleepily, then rose and stretched, stepped daintily into the inviting lap, and curled down to sleep again.

  Jen laughed, in spite of her troubles. “I’m anchored! You silly old lady, how can I stay here without even a book? You are trusting, aren’t you? Oh, well, I shall just have to sit and think!”

  Her mind went back to the idea which had come to her as she woke, and she sighed. “It will have to wait. I was all thrilled about it! But if they send me back to school there’ll be no hope. I wonder how soon we’ll know?”

  CHAPTER II

  IN QUARANTINE

  A maid appeared at the door of the passage, calling her. “Miss Jen! The doctor wants to see you.”

  “See me? There’s nothing the matter with me!” Jen protested. She laid the Mother Superior gently on the grass, chased Timmy away, and went racing to the house.

  The doctor and Mrs. Shirley were waiting on the terrace. “The doctor wants to speak to you, Jen dear,” Mrs. Shirley explained.

  “I’m all right.” Jen looked up at Dr. Brown in an injured way. “I haven’t got a cold or a headache.”

  “Good!” he smiled. “Nor a sore throat? Nor any aches and pains anywhere?”

  “Not one. I’m as right as can be.”

  “And what about that ankle I was called to see, a few weeks ago?”

  “I’d forgotten it. It doesn’t hurt. I’ve been dancing, and I took five wickets last Wednesday in a match.”

  “Congratulations! Then we may say the ankle is cured.” He turned to Mrs. Shirley. “She’s all right. I’ll be in again to-morrow, and I’ll send the nurse at once.”

  “Nurse!” Jen gasped. “Are Joan and Joy so terribly ill? Oh, please tell me!”

  “Not at all,” he said hastily. “Joan will be almost well again in a day or two; not much the matter with her—quite a slight case. But you mustn’t see her, of course. Joy will take longer. We can’t allow Mrs. Shirley to do nursing, you know; she’d be our next patient.”

  “Oh! I’m sorry; I didn’t think. Of course, she mustn’t make herself ill,” Jen cried.

  Mrs. Shirley smiled and sighed. “I’d like to do it, but no one will hear of it. Joan is sure that in a day or two she’ll be able to help, but just at present I’m afraid we must have somebody.”

  “I suppose I couldn’t do anything?” Jen asked wistfully.

  “I expect we shall find you can do a great deal,” and Mrs. Shirley turned to say good-bye to the doctor as he hurried to his car.

  Jen stood on the terrace, her face aglow with hope. “Then—oh, Auntie Shirley, you aren’t going to send me back to school before Monday? Oh, let me stay and help you!”

  Mrs. Shirley was small and frail, her dark hair turning white; Joan, tall and strong and with vivid bronze hair, was like her father, and in every way she tried to take care of her mother. Jen could readily believe that even a strange nurse in the house would seem better to Joan than the thought of her mother burdened with extra work.

  Mrs. Shirley put her arm round her would-be assistant. “Jen, dear, I have something to tell you. The doctor confirmed what I suspected. The girls have measles, Joan slightly, Joy rather badly——”

  “Measles!” Jen said slowly. “Measles! Oh—hard lines! Where did they catch it? Nobody’s had it at school.”

  “Dr. Brown says there have been several cases in the town, and there are a number of fresh ones yesterday and this morning. He wasn’t surprised. But don’t you see what it means, Jen? You were with the girls last night; you and Joan were sitting in the Abbey, and you were with Joy at tea before she went to bed.”

  Jen looked at her round-eyed. “You mean—I may have taken it from Joan and I’ll begin presently? Could she give it to me last night, before you knew? Then”—her mind leapt to the consequences—“I can’t go back to school! They won’t have me, will they? Won’t I be in quarantine?” her eyes blazed.

  “Jen, you’re a naughty girl,” Mrs. Shirley scolded, but laughed in spite of herself. “I believe you’re pleased!”

  “Pleased! It’s marvellous!” Jen shouted. “I can stay here and help you. There’ll be heaps I can do without going into the—the infected quarters of the house! You’ll keep me, won’t you? There isn’t anywhere else I could go, if they won’t have me at school!”

  “I’m sure Miss Macey won’t want you. It would mean keeping you apart from the rest of the girls until the danger is past. Of course you must stay here. It’s our fault that you’ve been in contact with the infection, though we couldn’t know what was going to happen.”

  “It was simply sweet of you to infect me!” Jen cried exuberantly. “I never was so glad about anything before! Right in the middle of the summer term—oh, marvellous!”

  “Jen, you’re really very naughty,” Mrs. Shirley said laughing. “I sincerely hope we haven’t infected you, and that in a fortnight Dr. Brown will send you back to school.”

  “Yes, but a fortnight’s holiday, in the summer—oh, Auntie Shirley, I know I’m bad, but would you mind if I danced a jig? I think perhaps a morris, with some very high capers, might work off my joy a little.”

  Mrs. Shirley shook her head at her. “And what about your place in class?”

  “I don’t care two hoots. I’m not taking any exam., and if I’m bottom I shall have a good excuse. I’ll be able to say I missed a fortnight; nobody could expect me to be anything but bottom.”

  “And what about cricket?”

  “I’m sorry, of course,” Jen admitted. “I shall have to let Jack down again. She’ll be sorry she put me in the team; I haven’t been much use to her. First my ankle, and now the Abbey measles! But Jack will know it can’t be helped. She wouldn’t like me to give the whole team measles! I’ve played for her in three big matches anyway. What can I do to help you first, Auntie Shirley?”

  “I must go up to the girls again. You might phone to your friend and tell her what has happened. You know how to do it, don’t you?”

  “Rather! Yes, I’d like to tell Jack. If I do it at once I may catch her before she goes to her committee. She mustn’t come here, of course.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have a dull time and be very lonely, Jenny-Wren. We can’t have friends here for you, and we can’t let you be with Joan or Joy.”

  Jen made a grimace. “I like to be with people! I’m a person who likes company.”

  “Naturally sociable.” Mrs. Shirley smiled. “You certainly are. What will you do with yourself? You’ll have to keep away from everybody, you know.”

  “I may go in the Abbey and talk to the cats, mayn’t I?”

  “Oh, surely! But don’t wander underground and lose yourself.”

  “I won’t,” Jen promised earnestly. “I love the Abbey, every bit of it, but somehow I feel I can be satisfied with the upstairs parts of it just now.”

  “Your experiences in the vaults are still too fresh in your memory,” Mrs. Shirley assented. “That’s a promise, then. You won’t go wandering alone in the passages.”

  “No, Auntie Shirley, I won’t. I don’t want to see those tunnels again for a long while.”

  “Then I shall feel safe about you. Go and talk to Jack; presently I shall ring up Miss Macey and ask her to send some things for you.”

  “Yes, I’ll need more clothes. I came for a week-end, and
I seem likely to stay for quite a long time.” In spite of herself Jen could not keep the exultation out of her voice.

  “Joan will be shocked when she hears you are pleased, Jen.”

  “Oh, no, she won’t! She’ll understand and she’ll laugh. Auntie Shirley, I bet you sixpence Joan laughs! Give her my love, and say I’m terribly sorry she’s ill, but I think it’s frightfully nice of her to have something infectious,” Jen pleaded.

  Mrs. Shirley laughed and shook her head again as she went indoors.

  CHAPTER III

  TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

  “Can I speak to Miss Jacqueline, please?” Jen had found Dr. Wilmot’s number and spoke with great politeness.

  “Jacqueline speaking,” Jack’s voice answered. “Who wants me?”

  “Oh, Jacky-boy! It’s the wife of your heart—Jenny-Wren. Oh, Jack——”

  “Jen, you blighter! Why address me like a maiden aunt? I had all sorts of spasms down my spine.”

  “I’m frightfully sorry. I thought I ought to ask for Miss Jacqueline. Jack, the most ghastly thing has happened!”

  “I know,” Jack said gloomily. “That’s why I’m not at the committee. But how do you know? Who told you? Oh, do you mean—Jen, what do you mean? You couldn’t know about us! Has something gone wrong with you too? Tell me quickly!”

  “No, you tell first,” Jen said firmly. “What’s up?”

  “Mary—our housemaid—is down with measles. Dad has packed her off to the isolation hospital, of course; he couldn’t have a case of infection in a doctor’s house! But I was with her all yesterday evening; Dad and Mummy were out to dinner, so I scurried through my prep. and went into the kitchen and helped Mary with some ironing—I like ironing. She had a bad cold, but Daddy didn’t know; he’s wild with me for not guessing, but how could I? Most bad colds aren’t the beginning of measles! He doesn’t want half the school down with it, so I’m not to go back till we see if I’ve taken it. What’s the matter, you rotter? It’s not funny! Think of the junior team!”