Abbey Series

The lattice window of the ancient inn opened with a jerk, and Cicely leaned out to sniff the sweet air joyously. Last night she had been too tired to notice her surroundings, but after eight hours of restful sleep she felt ready for anything. A robin on the thatch over her window chirped a greeting, and she laughed back at him, then retreated as a stable-boy slouched into the yard. The sun was just rising, for it was October, and the nights were growing long. The sky still held splashes of colour, but she could not see the sun, because a green patch of hill shut in her view. Apparently the hill rose steeply behind the inn and cast a shadow over it. But from that smooth top one could see the sunrise, and perhaps something of the country besides. Her instinct was always to get to the bottom of things, if possible. In this case it was the top of things, so far as she could see them, that attracted her. It was only six o’clock, but she began to dress eagerly, wondering if she should wake her father or explore alone. Her wavy dark hair gave her trouble that morning. ‘Of course, since I’m in a particular hurry!’ She struggled with the curly tangles, and ruefully resolved never again to be in such a hurry for bed that she had not time to plait it. But she had been glad to roll into bed last night.

‘I don’t see why they need choose such an out-of-the-way place to ramble to!’ grumbled a fair-haired girl, toiling along in the rear. ‘What’s the matter?’ and an elder girl turned to look back at the juniors. ‘Who’s grumbling? Carry Carter again?’ ‘Carry Carter as usual, you mean,’ laughed sturdy brown-faced Edna. The elders had paused at the top of a long hill, and the juniors, toiling after, had caught them up. There were only a dozen of them to-day, for an important hockey practice had kept several members at home. Miriam and Cicely, the leaders, were among the eldest girls in the school. Miriam was eighteen, with her fair hair wound round her head in thick plaits; Cicely was a year younger, but already looking nearly grown-up, with her dark brown hair tied back and her skirts well below her knees. The rest of the party were younger, sturdy Edna and grumbling Carry being fifteen, and the others ranging between them and the seniors. ‘Carry Carter always grumbles on rambles. I don’t know why she ever joined,’ and Cicely slipped her hand through her friend’s arm and turned to go on her way.  

The crowning of the May Queen was in progress in the big school hall, and among the crowd of girls who hung over the balcony railing none was more interested than Jen. She was very much of a new girl—or else, as she said to herself, she would jolly well have been down there among the other dancing girls, who, in two long lines, were laughing at their partners as they kicked and clapped hands and shook their fingers at one another in a quaint country dance, ‘Sweet Kate.’ The four previous Queens sat on the platform, grouped about the heroine of the day, a sweet-faced, bronze-haired girl of sixteen. Jen gazed at her worshipfully. She had not been shy the day before, her first day at school, because she did not know the meaning of the word, but she had certainly felt strange. The school was so very big; there were such crowds of girls, who all knew one another, and all knew where to go. Then this girl, with the ruddy hair and friendly brown eyes, had espied her and come to the rescue, had shown her over the school and answered her eager questions. Jen had marvelled that a senior should take so much trouble over a thirteen-year-old, but Nesta and Kathy, of her form, had explained, when, thanks to this introduction, they had accepted her into their midst, ‘She’s the new Queen. The Coronation’s to-morrow night. It’s part of her work to look after new girls.’

“I won’t! I won’t go! And if you ask her to have me, I’ll run away!” and scarlet with anger, her face working with distress, Maidlin rushed away into the abbey and hid herself in a corner. Ann Watson, the caretaker, turned to her washing with pinched lips and worried face. It was only a week since this tempestuous niece had come to stay with her, and had been allowed to live there by the mistress of the abbey on promise of very good behaviour, and because she was “not a boy and not a silly infant.” “Fourteen ought to have some sense!” Joan had said, in giving permission. But what a week it had been! Maidlin had been quiet enough and even reverent in her attitude to the beautiful old ruins, loving them and wondering at them, and wandering much among them, fascinated by her aunt’s stories of the white-robed monks of long ago. There had been no repetition of the tragedy of Joan’s schooldays, when the wall of the chapter-house had been defaced by thoughtless Dicky Jessop. But so much had happened in that week of Maidlin’s visit! Ann’s brows puckered again as she thought over it all, and wondered what she must do now. For Maidlin had suddenly become a person of consequence, and Ann hardly felt able to cope with the situation. And what was worse, the child had unexpectedly developed a temper, which had not shown at first, and Ann felt very decidedly that she did not know how to deal with her.

“You’ll come, won’t you, old thing?” “Of course she’ll come. We couldn’t go to the pictures without her. Six o’clock at the corner, all of you!” “I can’t manage it before half-past,” and Biddy Devine hesitated. “I really ought not to come at all. It’s the third time this week, Doris. Poor old Mary won’t like it.” “Oh, but she can’t stop you! You must have some fun, like everybody else. We simply couldn’t go without you. Be a sport, Biddy, and dodge her somehow!” “It must be rotten to have an old creature like that always fussing when you want to do any little thing,” said another of the girls, who were standing in a bunch at the door of a big commercial training college in the heart of London. “I’m sure, after such a beastly all-day grind as we’ve had, we’re due a little fun at night! I consider shorthand positively wicked!” “It is the limit,” Biddy agreed, swinging her case and looking irresolute. “But Mary might say three times of the pictures in one week was the limit, too. And I’m going out to-morrow night as well. It leaves her all alone, you see. It’s not as if we were a proper family.”