Read Ebook: Three Girls from School by Meade L T Tarrant Percy Illustrator

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Ebook has 493 lines and 24794 words, and 10 pages

The girls made a quite picturesque appearance as they went slowly down the broad staircase. Mabel had not cried enough to look ugly, and Annie's few tears and pallor and evident distress gave to her face the depth of expression which in her lighter moments it had lacked.

John Saxon was seated close to Lady Lushington. Lady Lushington had recognised him as a friend and a favourite. He rose when the girls appeared, and Lady Lushington went at once up to Annie.

Her manner was very cold and distant. "You did not give me the slightest idea, Miss Brooke, how ill your uncle was when you received your cousin's letter."

"I didn't know that he was especially ill," said Annie.

Lady Lushington looked full at her. It seemed at that moment that a veil had fallen away from Annie's face, and that the gay, proud, and selfish woman of the world saw the girl for the first time as she was.

Lady Lushington, with all her faults--the faults of her class and her manner of life--was exceedingly good-natured, and could be remarkably kind. She was thoroughly angry with Annie for concealing the truth with regard to John Saxon's letter. She could, and would, forgive much to any young girl who was enjoying herself and who wanted to continue the good time which had fallen to her lot; but to forget one who stood in the place of a father, to let him long for her in vain, was more than Lady Lushington could stand.

"I don't appreciate that sort of thing," she said to herself. "It is, somehow, beneath me. I don't understand it."

She made up her mind on the spot, that, as far as Mabel was concerned, the friendship between the two girls was to terminate there and then. Never would she have anything farther to do with Annie Brooke. As that was the case, she did not consider it necessary to correct her.

"I am sorry," she said briefly, "that you did not interpret very plain English in the manner in which it was intended. I don't think for a single moment that your cousin meant to complain of you to me, but he simply quoted some words of his letter, and seemed altogether astonished that you did not start for England the day before yesterday. However, I trust you will find your dear uncle alive when you get home. I have desired Parker to pack your things, and now you would doubtless like to go up and change your dress."

"Thank you," said Annie very meekly. She glanced in Mrs Ogilvie's direction; but Mrs Ogilvie took no notice of her.

"Mabel, come and sit here near Mrs Ogilvie," said Lady Lushington as Annie once again disappeared. "You can say good-bye to your friend presently; there is no necessity for you to spend the whole evening upstairs."

HOME NO MORE.

It was all over--the fun, the gaiety, the good things of life, the delights of fine living, the charm of being with rich friends. It is true that Annie Brooke returned to England with a little private fund of her own in her pocket; but John Saxon insisted on her returning him the two five-pound notes he had enclosed to her. Out of these he paid for her ticket back to England.

John Saxon was a very cold, silent, and unsympathetic fellow-traveller. He sat moodily in a corner, wrapped in his greatcoat, the collar of which he turned up; a travelling-cap came well down over his head, so that Annie could see little or nothing of his face. He had done what he could to make her comfortable, and had wrapped her round with warm things. Then he had taken no further notice of her.

On the whole, Priscilla Weir had a far more interesting journey to England than had that spoiled child of fortune Annie Brooke. Annie, however, was glad to be left alone. She did not want to talk to that odious man, Cousin John Saxon. But for him, life would not have been suddenly spoiled for her. She would not have been found out. She was far too clever not to be sure that Lady Lushington had found her out. Not that Lady Lushington had discovered any serious crimes to lay at her door, but then she had read her character aright, and that character was of the sort which the great lady could not tolerate. Therefore Annie was--and she knew it well--shut away from any further dealings with Mabel Lushington.

Poor Mabel! How would she provide the money for Priscilla's two remaining terms at school? How would she go through a stern catechism with regard to the necklace when Annie was no longer by her side?

"Everything will be discovered," thought Annie Brooke. "There is no help for it. What shall I do? And I'd managed so well and so--so cleverly. There isn't a bit of good in being clever in this world. It seems to me it's the stupid people that have the best times. Of course that idiotic old Mabel will let out the whole story before many hours are over. And then there'll be a frightful to-do, and perhaps Mabel will be sent back to Mrs Lyttelton's school--that is, if Mrs Lyttelton will receive her, which fact I very much doubt. As to me--oh, well, I'll have to hide somewhere. I hope to goodness Mr Manchuri will never tell anybody about the necklace; he faithfully promised he wouldn't and he seemed an honourable sort of man. But then, ought I to expect any one to be honourable in his dealings with me? I don't know; the world seems coming to pieces. Horrid John Saxon! How I detest him! Oh, I feel as though I could go mad!"

Annie started up impatiently. She went across the carriage and opened one of the windows, putting her head out at the same time. She hoped Saxon would take some notice. She wanted him to speak to her. His silence, his apparent indifference to her, were just the sort of thing to madden the girl in her present mood.

Saxon was seated facing the engine, and, in consequence, when Annie opened the window wide he was exposed to a tremendous draught. He bore it for a minute or two; then, rising, he said very quietly:

"Will you excuse me? I don't think the night air is good for you, and it is certainly bad for me. I will, therefore, with your permission, shut the window; it is cold."

"I am suffocating," said Annie.

"I will open it again in a few minutes so that you can have fresh air from time to time."

"Oh!" said Annie, with a sudden burst of passion, beating one small hand over the other, "why have you been so cruel to me?"

Saxon glanced at her. There was only one other occupant of the carriage--an old gentleman, who was sound asleep and snoring loudly.

"Won't you speak?" said Annie. "Why do you sit so silent, so indifferent, when you have spoiled my life?"

"Oh, how I hate you when you preach!"

"Then perhaps you will not speak to me. I am exceedingly tired; a journey to Zermatt and back again without any rest makes a man inclined for slumber. I will sleep, if you have no objection. In the morning perhaps we shall both be in a better temper than we are at present."

"I wish," said Annie, speaking in sudden passion, "that I could fling myself out of that window. You have destroyed every prospect I ever had in life."

"You talk in an exceedingly silly way," said Saxon. "Now do try and be quiet, if you please."

His absolute disregard of her threat to end her own miserable life made Annie at once furious and also strangely subdued. She sat back in her corner like a little wild creature caught in a trap. There was nothing whatever to be done but to submit. To submit as she was now doing was indeed new to Annie Brooke. Her head was in a whirl; but by-and-by, to her own relief, she also slept, and so part of the miserable journey was got through.

It was late on the following afternoon when Annie and John Saxon found themselves driving in the gig to Rashleigh Rectory. They had to pass through the little village, and Annie looked with a sort of terror at Dawson's shop. She wondered if the matter of the cheque would ever be brought up against her. So occupied was she with herself and with all the dreadful things she had done that she could scarcely think of her dying old uncle at all.

The memory of a text, too, which she had learned as a child began to be present with her. Her head was aching, and the text, with its well-known words, tormented her.

"`Be sure your sin will find you out. Be sure--your sin--will find you out,'" murmured Annie in too low a tone for Saxon to hear.

They had been met at the railway station with the information that Mr Brooke was still alive, and Saxon uttered a sigh of relief. Then his journey had not been in vain. Then the old man would be gratified. The greatest longing and wish of his life would be fulfilled. The darling of his heart would be with him at the end.

John Saxon turned and looked at the girl. She was crouching up in the gig. She felt cold, for the evenings were turning a little chill. She had wrapped an old cloak, which Mrs Shelf had sent, around her slim figure.

Her small, fair face peeped out from beneath the shelter of the cloak. Her eyes had a terrified light in them. Saxon felt that, for Mr Brooke's sake, Annie must not enter the Rectory in her present state of wild revolt and rebellion.

He suddenly turned down a shady lane which did not lead direct to the Rectory. His action awoke no sort of notice in Annie's mind. Her uncle was alive; he probably was not so very bad after all. This was a plot of John Saxon's--a plot to destroy her happiness. But for John, how different would be her life now!

They drove down about a hundred yards of the lane, and then the young man pulled the horse up and drew the gig towards the side of the road. This fact woke Annie from the sort of trance into which she had sunk, and she turned and looked at him.

"Why are you stopping?" she asked.

"Because I must speak to you, Annie," was her cousin's response.

"Have you anything fresh to say? Is there anything fresh to say?"

"There is something that must be said," replied John Saxon. "You cannot, Annie, enter the Rectory and meet Mrs Shelf, and, above all things, go into that chamber where your dear uncle is waiting for the Angel of Death to fetch him away to God, looking as you are doing now. You are, I well know, in a state of great mental misery. You have done wrong--how wrong, it is not for me to decide. I know of some of your shortcomings, but this is no hour for me to speak of them. All I can say at the present moment is this: that you are very young, and you are motherless, and--you are about, little Annie, to be fatherless. You are on the very eve of losing the noblest and best father that girl ever possessed. Your uncle has stood in the place of a father to you. You never appreciated him; you never understood him. He was so high above you that you could never even catch a glimpse of the goodness of his soul. But I cannot believe in the possibility of any one being quite without heart or quite without some sense of honour; and I should be slow, very slow, to believe it of you.

"Now, there is one last thing which you have got to do for your uncle Maurice, and I have brought you down here to tell you what that last thing is."

Annie was silent. She shrank a little more into the shelter of the rough old cloak, and moved farther from her cousin.

"You must do it Annie," he said, speaking in a decided voice; "you must on no account whatever fail at this supreme juncture."

"Well?" said Annie when he paused.

"Your uncle is expecting you. God has kept him alive in order that he may see your face again. To him your face is as that of an angel. To him those blue eyes of yours are as innocent as those of a little child. To him you are the spotless darling, undefiled, uninjured by the world, whom he has nurtured and loved for your father's sake and for your own. You must on no account, Annie, open his eyes to the truth with regard to you now. It is your duty to keep up the illusion as far as he is concerned. I have taken all this trouble to bring you to his bedside in order that he may have his last wish gratified, and you must not fail me. Perhaps your uncle's prayers may be answered; and God, who can do all things, will change your heart.

"Now, remember, Annie, you have to forget yourself to-night and to think only of the dying old man. Promise me, promise me that you will do so."

"You have spoken very strangely, Cousin John," said Annie after a very long pause. "I--I will do--my--best I am very bad--but--I will do--my best."

The next instant Annie's icy-cold little hand was clasped in that of John Saxon.

"You have to believe two things," he said. "A great man who was as your father, whom God is taking to Himself. That man loves you with all his heart and soul and strength. When he dies, there is another man, unworthy, unfit truly, to stand in his shoes, but nevertheless who will not forsake you. Now let us get back to the Rectory."

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