A SUNDAY OUT
Cousin Greta was as good or as bad as her word; Joey wasn't quite sure
which way to look at it. On that first Sunday morning, while she, with
the twenty other girls at Miss Lambton's table, was enjoying the Sunday
luxury of late breakfast and hot sausages, a note was brought to Miss
Lambton.
"Jocelyn Graham," she called.
Joey stood up.
"Miss Conyngham has sent to say that relations are coming to take you
out. They will be here at 12.30. Go to the drawing-room when you come
out of chapel."
"Yes, Miss Lambton."
Joey sat down, and went on with her sausages. She felt rather
depressed; the only cheering part of the business was that by going out
she would probably escape that unknown horror of saying her Collect,
Epistle, and Gospel, and being questioned on them.
Noreen was sitting two places away. "What are they? Aunts, uncles, or
what? Are they good for chocolates, or will they point out that those
are still four shillings a pound, and schoolgirls should be thankful
for bread and margarine!"
"I expect the relation is my Cousin Greta, and she always used to bring
us chocolates," Joey answered.
"Don't eat them all on the way home. Think of your precious health, my
che-ild," cried half a dozen imploring voices.
Joey could take chaff better now; besides, the antipathy of the
Redlanders to her village school had died a natural and speedy death.
"P'r'aps I'd better think of yours," she said.
"You little beast!" muttered Noreen, but rather inaudibly, "beast"
being one of the expressions that even easy-going Miss Lambton did not
pass at table.
There was a walk before chapel on Sundays, if weather allowed; Joey
paired off with Gabrielle on this occasion, and found her sympathetic
over the outing.
"It's always decent going out when you're at school, even if it's to
the stuffiest people," she explained. "It's different, you know--that's
it partly. There was a girl here--she's left now--whose only relation
handy was a great-aunt who was quite deaf and almost blind, and rather
childish too, poor thing. And there was nothing whatever for Chrissie
to do at her house but play with the cat, and no books except _Laneton
Parsonage_ and _The Fairchild Family_. But Chrissie liked going all the
same; you see, she could tell the other girls she had a good time when
she came back, and that was something."
"Yes, I suppose that would be something," Joey agreed, and went to get
ready for chapel in much better spirits.
Redlands Chapel was very beautiful. Later on Joey came to know much of
its story: that the wonderful black chancel screen had been rescued by
a girl's father from an old barn on his estate, and went back to the
stormy times of Henry VIII.'s devastating war upon the monasteries;
that the beautiful reredos had been carved by an old pupil of the
College who had gone out into the world to find fame. Three of the
windows came from a little private chapel near by, and had suffered at
the hands of Cromwell's Fifth Monarchy men.
She stood and knelt in her place about half-way down the aisle, feeling
it all very strange after the plain little "Established" service at
Calgarloch, where Mr. Craigie preached for an hour on end, and brought
sweeties to Kirsty and Bingo in the afternoon if they had not fidgeted.
Joey liked the service, though she didn't know what singing could
be till the second hymn; the College always refusing to throw any
enthusiasm into the strains of
Lord, behold us with Thy blessing,
Once again assembled here.
But with the second--"Onward! Christian Soldiers," the six hundred
Redlanders fairly let go, swamping choir and organ. Joey found that
she enjoyed that hymn. It is a wonderful feeling to join in with that
crowd. She forgot that she had been rather lonely, in a pew full of
strangers, with Gabrielle and Noreen both far away from her in the
choir.
When the service was over she went, as ordered, straight to Miss
Conyngham's room, where she found Cousin Greta--tall, thin,
grey-haired, and distinguished-looking--conversing with Miss Conyngham.
Joey offered a cheek to her relative with exemplary politeness. Cousin
Greta kissed her and then held her at arm's length, looking at her
critically.
"My dear child, what a beanstalk for only thirteen! But height runs
in the family," she added to Miss Conyngham; "my cousin, this child's
father, was six foot two."
"Mums is tall as well," Joey put in aggressively.
"Yes, I suppose she is," agreed Cousin Greta, without interest. "Are
you ready to come, Joey? I will bring her back--did you say in time for
evening chapel--6.30? Very good, Miss Conyngham."
Cousin Greta and the Head shook hands, and Cousin Greta laid
beautifully gloved fingers on Joey's shoulders, and walked her out
in the wake of the perfect parlour-maid to the front door, where her
Daimler was waiting.
Joey tried to look riotously happy, not so much, it is to be feared,
from motives of politeness, as because she wanted to impress the other
girls standing about in little groups near the entrance. She even waved
condescendingly to one of the two big girls who had sat beside her at
that first breakfast and taken so little notice of her presence. The
senior tried to put her in her place by not returning the wave, but
Joey knew they were envious, all the same. Of course, they couldn't
know what a stupid sort of outing she was really going to have.
"And how do you like Redlands?" asked Cousin Greta, as the car slid
smoothly down the drive.
"Oh, all right," Joey answered, still with caution.
"Have you made many friends yet?"
"Not whole ones--sort of half."
"What _do_ you mean?"
"Oh, I like some of the girls," Joey said, getting red; "but that isn't
being proper friends, is it?"
Cousin Greta "didn't know." Joey thought she had been an idiot to try
and answer that question so truthfully. She might have realised that
Cousin Greta wouldn't be likely to understand, and for the next ten
minutes she patiently answered questions as to the health of Mums, the
boys, and Kirsty, her own place in Form, and such-like. She also told
Cousin Greta all that she thought Cousin Greta would like to know: what
his late Headmaster had said about Gavin; the good place Ronnie had
taken; Bingo's funny comment when the schoolmaster tried to teach him
the first declension.
"I'm sure God didn't make this language the same time as He made nice
fings like elephants."
"Your father's boys would have brains," said Cousin Greta approvingly.
"Father always said Mums had twice his," Joey fired out, getting hot
and angry.
"Your father was very modest," Cousin Greta said, but she sighed. It
occurred to Joey that perhaps Cousin Greta disliked the day together
quite as much as she herself did. She made an effort to be pleasant;
perhaps, after all, Cousin Greta didn't mean to slight Mums; it was
only her stupid way of talking.
"Do tell me about Father when he was a little boy," she asked.
"If you peep at the glass in my room when we come to Mote House
you will know just what he looked like," Lady Greta told her more
cheerfully.
Joey stared. "Am I like him? I never knew that."
"I see the likeness," Cousin Greta said, and was silent for a little
while the car flew along the straight marsh road at a most exhilarating
pace.
"I suppose your mother never heard anything more after the letter from
that fellow-prisoner, which she sent me?" she asked at last.
"No, nothing; though Mums wrote and wrote, and went to meet the batch
of prisoners from Wilhelmgradt after the Armistice, and Uncle Staff
went on going to the War Office."
"It was a great blow to us all," said Lady Greta.
Joey bit back the remark that it was worst for Mums; after all, Mums
wouldn't have liked her to say it. There was a little silence.
"Gracie is looking forward to seeing you," Cousin Greta went on at
last. "Let me see, she is just two years older than you are, I suppose."
"She doesn't go to school, does she?"
"No, I am afraid I am not quite a believer in school for girls.
Besides, she has such a delightful governess, Miss Richards."
Joey supposed "How nice for her" was the proper thing to say, and said
it; and that remark brought them to Mote Court.
Gracie met them at the door, a pretty but delicate-looking girl, very
beautifully dressed. When Joey shook hands with her she suddenly
realised that her own stockings were darned in the leg, where the darn
showed a good deal.
However, Gracie was quite polite, and carried her guest off to her own
room to take off her coat and hat and wash her hands for luncheon, and
then to the schoolroom, where Miss Richards was sitting, playing Halma
with a spare, freckled boy who was lying on the sofa, covered with a
rug.
Gracie introduced Miss Richards, and then the boy as "My Cousin John."
Joey liked the look of John, though his best friends couldn't have
called him anything but plain. But he had a pleasant and companionable
grin, and a much more vigorous way of shaking hands than either Gracie
or Miss Richards.
"We had better put away the Halma men, John," said Miss Richards. "The
luncheon gong will go directly, and you will like to talk to Gracie's
little friend."
Joey wriggled inwardly at this description, but went and sat down by
John's sofa. Anyhow, he looked easier to talk to than Gracie. "I didn't
know you lived here," she said.
"I don't," John told her. "But I had a smash-up, you see, and Aunt
Greta asked me here to get fit again!"
"John is in the Navy," Gracie explained. "He's a middy on the ..."
"A snotty," corrected John in a warning growl. "You're at school here,
aren't you?" he added, turning to Joey.
"I'm at Redlands."
"That's the big place out beyond the Round Tower?"
"Yes. I say, do you know anything about the tower?" Joey asked
breathlessly.
"Aunt Greta's the one to ask--she lives here. Why? Are you specially
keen on towers?"
"Joey comes from Scotland," Gracie said, as though a tower were an
unknown spectacle in the north.
Joey was just going to explain that what specially interested her was
not so much the tower as the queer lights that came from it, when the
gong for luncheon sounded with a roar, and Gracie got up.
"Come along, Joey. John has his lunch up here."
Rather dull for John, Joey thought, as she followed her cousin
obediently along corridors and downstairs to the dining-room. She would
have liked to ask about him, and whether he would soon be better, but
was afraid of seeming inquisitive, so left Gracie and Miss Richards to
make polite conversation.
In the dining-room she was presented to Colonel Sturt, who was bald and
rather morose, and gave her two fingers only when she shook hands. Then
Cousin Greta motioned Joey to a chair on her own right, and luncheon
began.
It was a very grand luncheon; mindful of what Gabrielle had said, Joey
stored up an exact description of the mayonnaise and roast chickens,
the cold sirloin and wonderful salad, the trifle, meringues and
apricot-jam tartlets; they at least would be something to tell the
girls about.
Cousin Greta saw to it that Joey made an excellent meal, but it was
certainly a dull one. Colonel Sturt was upset by something he had read
in his paper about Germans creeping back into the country; and Gracie
was almost as obviously annoyed by her mother's refusal to let her do
something or other that she wanted that afternoon. She did talk to Joey
a little, but the two years between them seemed to make an impossible
gulf, Joey thought. It was really rather a comfort when the long, grand
luncheon was over, even though Cousin Greta swept Joey off to her own
room for "a little talk"--rather an alarming suggestion.
Cousin Greta's room was a world of looking-glasses; Joey saw her own
slim self reflected everywhere--a self who looked oddly spruce and tidy
in the dark green velveteen best frock of Redlands, and with her mass
of fair hair tied neatly back with a dark green bow. Her brown eyes
under black lashes looked rather seriously back at this new tidy self
reflected.
Cousin Greta came behind Joey and laid two hands on her shoulders.
"And now, barring the clothes, you know how your dear father used to
look when he came to us for his holidays," she said, and Joey felt
sorry for Cousin Greta suddenly, and as though she were minding a good
deal about Father under all her cold, languid ways.
"I'm glad I'm like," she said, "though he wanted us all to be like
Mums. But I'll never be anything like him in splendidness, worse luck;
now the war is over, there isn't even a chance of serving your country."
Cousin Greta shivered. "My dear child, don't talk as though you were
sorry this ghastly war is over!" which was one of the speeches that set
Joey's teeth on edge, and were impossible to answer.
She said no more, and Cousin Greta took a tremendous box of chocolates
from the chest of drawers and told Joey she was to take them back with
her to school. Then she mentioned that she always rested for an hour
after luncheon, and did Joey think she could find her way back to the
schoolroom, where she would find Gracie? Joey thanked Cousin Greta, and
was sure she could, and in due course, and after taking two or three
wrong turnings, she found herself back at the schoolroom door.
She heard no sound of voices; it did not sound as though anybody were
inside, and sure enough when she opened the door she found nobody in
the room but John.
He grinned at her in a friendly fashion. "Where's Gracie?" he asked.
"I don't know," Joey said. She took some credit to herself for not
adding, "I don't care."
John laughed. "Well, come and talk to me till she comes along."
Joey established herself on a chair by his sofa. "What do you do when
you're a snotty?" she asked. "We know more about the Army, you see."
"Keep a look out when the deck's all ice, mostly," John said. "Of
course, sometimes there was a scrap--not half often enough, though--and
when you get your signal you've to be jolly quick or the other chap
snaffles it all!"
"How do you signal?" Joey asked.
"Wireless mostly. Of course you have to know all kinds of signals. Can
you read Morse?"
"No, I can't."
"I'll teach you--it's as easy as winking."
And John kept his word. Joey was fairly safe on the Morse alphabet in
half an hour, and felt immensely pleased with herself. She was only too
delighted that Gracie stayed away so long; she was beginning to enjoy
herself for the first time that day.
John directed her to a table-drawer, where there was an electric torch
and a whistle; he took the torch and she the whistle; and she went over
to the window to make her first attempt at "sending" in Morse. She
boggled rather over it, and had to be prompted in two or three letters;
but John was encouraging, and assured her she was picking it up very
quickly. Then he proceeded to reply, very slowly, with long and short
flashes from the electric torch. Directly he began Joey knew of what it
reminded her--the curious blue flashes she had seen from the leads on
that first night she was at school.
She meant to ask John about them after he had finished his Morse
sentence--just now that needed all her concentration.
"Long, short, long, short," she spelt out. "C--is that right, John?
Short--long--don't tell me! I know. A--long--short--oh, that's the
opposite!--don't tell me--N."
"Right--group," said John. "Ready for next word?"
He flashed, "Short, long--long--long," Joey almost shrieked in her
excitement. It was a letter like that she had seen in the rainy
darkness from the leads.
"J," she spelt, and then she felt she must tell John about that light
without waiting for the slow, laborious spelling out of the next word.
She was just going to speak, but she had to see what the next letter
was, and in that instant she was seeing, Gracie spoke under the widely
opened window. Gracie's voice was very clear, and every syllable came
quite distinctly up to Joey at the window.
"Yes; I'm awfully annoyed about it, Eleanor, but I can't get mother to
see reason. I suppose she feels she ought to be nice to this child, who
is a sort of cousin; but it couldn't have hurt her to go back an hour
or two earlier and leave the car free for me, at the time I want it.
As it is, mother says she isn't going to send the little nuisance back
till half-past six."
"What a shame! I should strike at small schoolgirl cousins who have to
be kept all day, and sent back in the car."
That was another voice, evidently the voice of the girl to whom Gracie
was talking. Joey forgot all about Morse, and faced John with hot
cheeks.
"I won't do any more signalling, I think; thanks no end for teaching
me," she said. "I'll go and find Miss Richards, or someone."
John held out a thin, scarred hand. "I say, don't you worry about
Gracie," he growled. "Shocking bad form to talk like that, but she
doesn't mean it."
"I don't want to be sent back in the car," poor Joey burst out. "It's
only six miles--who wants a car?"
She stopped. It wasn't possible to tell John, who was Gracie's cousin,
that what hurt so much in the speech was the sense that they all
thought her a nuisance who must be entertained as a duty. Perhaps
John had really been finding her a nuisance too, when he taught her
signalling. Joey's one thought was to get away from all.
"Thanks awfully for being so nice to me," she said, "but I'll go now,
if you don't mind."
"Here, wait a bit," John urged; but Joey was already through the
door and out in the passage. She would say good-bye and thank you to
Cousin Greta, and ask if she might walk home, as it was such a lovely
afternoon.
But then poor Joey remembered that Cousin Greta was lying down and must
not be disturbed. What could she do?
Joey suddenly entertained the quite reprehensible idea of saying
nothing to anybody, but walking home all by herself.