Kitabı oku: «A World of Girls: The Story of a School», sayfa 13
Chapter Thirty Three
Untrustworthy
Dora Russell had declared, in Hester’s presence, and with intense energy in her manner, that the author of the insult to which she had been exposed should be publicly punished, and, if possible, expelled. On the evening of her interview with the head teacher, she had so far forgotten herself as to reiterate this desire with extreme vehemence. She had boldly declared her firm conviction of Annie’s guilt, and had broadly hinted at Mrs Willis’s favouritism toward her. The great dignity, however, of her teacher’s manner, and the half-sorrowful, half-indignant look she bestowed on the excited girl, calmed her down after a time. Mrs Willis felt full sympathy for Dora, and could well understand how trying and aggravating this practical joke must be to so proud a girl; but although her faith was undoubtedly shaken in Annie, she would not allow this sentiment to appear.
“I will do all I can for you, Dora,” she said, when the weeping Annie had left the room; “I will do everything in my power to find out who has injured you. Annie has absolutely denied the accusation you bring against her, and unless her guilt can be proved it is but right to believe her innocent. There are many other girls in Lavender House; and to-morrow morning I will sift this unpleasant affair to the very bottom. Go, now, my dear, and if you have sufficient self-command and self-control, try to have courage to write your essay over again. I have no doubt that your second rendering of your subject will be more attractive than the first. Beginners cannot too often re-write their themes.”
Dora gave her head a proud little toss, but she was sufficiently in awe of Mrs Willis to keep back any retort, and she went out of the room feeling unsatisfied and wretched, and inclined for a sympathising chat with her little friend, Hester Thornton.
Hester, however, when she reached her, seemed not at all disposed to talk to anyone.
“I’ve had it all out with Mrs Willis, and there is no doubt she will be exposed to-morrow morning,” said Dora, half aloud.
Hester, whose head was bent over her French history, looked up with an annoyed expression.
“Who will be exposed?” she asked, in a petulant voice.
“Oh, how stupid you are growing, Hester Thornton!” exclaimed Dora; “why, that horrid Annie Forest, of course – but really I have no patience to talk to you; you have lost all your spirit. I was very foolish to demean myself by taking so much notice of one of the little girls.”
Dora sailed down the play-room to her own drawing-room, fully expecting Hester to rise and rush after her; but to her surprise Hester did not stir, but sat with her head bent over her book, and her cheeks slightly flushed.
The next morning Mrs Willis kept her word to Dora, and made the very strictest inquiries with regard to the practical joke to which Dora had been subjected. She first of all fully explained what had taken place in the presence of the whole school, and then each girl was called up in rotation, and asked two questions: first, had she done this mischievous thing herself? second, could she throw any light on the subject?
One by one each girl appeared before her teacher, replied in the negative to both queries, and returned to her seat.
“Now, girls,” said Mrs Willis, “you have each of you denied this charge. Such a thing as has happened to Dora could not have been done without hands. The teachers in the school are above suspicion; the servants are none of them clever enough to perform this base trick. I suspect one of you, and I am quite determined to get at the truth. During the whole of this half-year there has been a spirit of unhappiness, of mischief, and of suspicion in our midst. Under these circumstances love cannot thrive; under these circumstances the true and ennobling sense of brotherly kindness, and all those feelings which real religion prompt must languish. I tell you all now plainly that I will not have this thing in Lavender House. It is simply disgraceful for one girl to play such tricks on her fellows. This is not the first time nor the second time that the school-desks have been tampered with. I will find out – I am determined to find out, who this dishonest person is; and as she has not chosen to confess to me, as she has preferred falsehood to truth, I will visit her, when I do discover her, with my very gravest displeasure. In this school I have always endeavoured to inculcate the true principles of honour and of trust. I have laid down certain broad rules, and expect them to be obeyed; but I have never hampered you with petty and humiliating restraints. I have given you a certain freedom, which I believed to be for your best good, and I have never suspected one of you until you have given me due cause.
“Now, however, I tell you plainly that I alter all my tactics. One girl sitting in this room is guilty. For her sake I shall treat you all as guilty, and punish you accordingly. For the remainder of this term, or until the hour when the guilty girl chooses to release her companions, you are all, with the exception of the little children and Miss Russell, who can scarcely have played this trick on herself, under punishment. I withdraw your half-holidays – I take from you the use of the South Parlour for your acting, and every drawing-room in the play-room is confiscated. But this, is not all that I do. In taking from you my trust, I must treat you as untrustworthy – you will no longer enjoy the liberty you used to delight in – everywhere you will be watched. A teacher will sit in your play-room with you, a teacher will accompany you into the grounds, and I tell you plainly, girls, that chance words and phrases which drop from your lips shall be taken up, and used, if necessary, to the elucidation of this disgraceful mystery.”
Here Mrs Willis left the room, and the teachers desired the several girls in their classes to attend to their morning studies.
Nothing could exceed the dismay which her words had produced. The innocent girls were fairly stunned, and from that hour for many a day all sunshine and happiness seemed really to have left Lavender House.
The two, however, who felt the change most acutely, and on whose altered faces their companions began to fix suspicious eyes, were Annie Forest and Hester Thornton. Hester was burdened with an intolerable sense of the shameful falsehood she had told; Annie, guilty in another matter, succumbed at last utterly to a sense of misery and injustice. Her orphaned and lonely position for the first time began to tell on her; she ate little and slept little, her face grew very pale and thin, and her health really suffered.
All the routine of happy life at Lavender House was changed. In the large play-room the drawing-rooms were unused; there were no pleasant little knots of girls whispering happily and confidentially together, for whenever two or three girls sat down to have a chat they found that one or another of the teachers was within hearing. The acting for the coming play progressed so languidly that no one expected it would really take place, and the one relief and relaxation to the unhappy girls lay in the fact that the holidays were not far off, and that in the meantime they might work hard for the prizes.
The days passed in a truly melancholy fashion, and, perhaps, for the first time the girls fully appreciated the old privileges of freedom and trust which were now forfeited. There was a feeble little attempt at a joke and a laugh in the school at Dora’s expense. The most frivolous of the girls whispered of her as she passed as “the muddy stream;” but no one took up the fun with avidity – the shadow of somebody’s sin had fallen too heavily upon all the bright young lives.
Chapter Thirty Four
Betty Falls Ill At An Awkward Time
The eight girls who had gone out on their midnight picnic were much startled one day by an unpleasant discovery. Betty had never come for her basket. Susan Drummond, who had a good deal of curiosity, and always poked her nose into unexpected corners, had been walking with a Miss Allison in that part of the grounds where the laurel-bush stood. She had caught a peep of the white handle of the basket, and had instantly turned her companion’s attention to something else. Miss Allison had not observed Susan’s start of dismay; but Susan had taken the first opportunity of getting rid of her, and had run off in search of one of the girls who had shared in the picnic. She came across Annie Forest, who was walking, as usual, by herself, with her head slightly bent, and her curling hair in sad confusion. Susan whispered the direful intelligence that old Betty had forsaken them, and that the basket, with its ginger-beer bottles and its stained table-cloth, might be discovered at any moment.
Annie’s pale face flushed slightly at Susan’s words.
“Why should we try to conceal the thing?” she said, speaking with sudden energy, and a look of hope and animation coming back to her face. “Susy, let’s go, all of us, and tell the miserable truth to Mrs Willis; it will be much the best way. We did not do the other thing, and when we have confessed about this our hearts will be at rest.”
“No, we did not do the other thing,” said Susan, a queer grey colour coming over her face; “but confess about this, Annie Forest! – I think you are mad. You dare not tell.”
“All right,” said Annie, “I won’t, unless you all agree to it,” and then she continued her walk, leaving Susan standing on the gravelled path with her hands clasped together, and a look of most genuine alarm and dismay on her usually phlegmatic face.
Susan quickly found Phyllis and Nora, and it was only too easy to arouse the fears of these timid little people. Their poor little faces became almost pallid, and they were not a little startled at the fact of Annie Forest, their own arch-conspirator, wishing to betray their secret.
“Oh,” said Susan Drummond, “she’s not out and out shabby; she says she won’t tell unless we all wish it. But what is to become of the basket?”
“Come, come, young ladies; no whispering, if you please,” said Miss Good, who came up at this moment. “Susan, you are looking pale and cold, walk up and down that path half-a-dozen times, and then go into the house. Phyllis and Nora, you can come with me as far as the lodge. I want to take a message from Mrs Willis to Mary Martin about the fowl for to-morrow’s dinner.”
Phyllis and Nora, with dismayed faces, waited solemnly away with the English teacher, and Susan was left to her solitary meditations.
Things had come to such a pass that her slow wits were brought into play, and she neither felt sleepy, nor did she indulge in her usual habit of eating lollipops.
That basket might be discovered any day, and then – then disgrace was imminent. Susan could not make out what had become of old Betty; never before had she so utterly failed them.
Betty lived in a little cottage about half a mile from Lavender House. She was a sturdy, apple-cheeked, little old woman, and had for many a day added to her income – indeed, almost supported herself – by means of the girls at Lavender House. The large cherry trees in her little garden bore their rich crop of fruit year after year for Mrs Willis’s girls, and every day at an early hour Betty would tramp into Sefton and return with a temptingly-laden basket of the most approved cakes and tarts. There was a certain paling at one end of the grounds to which Betty used to come. Here on the grass she would sit contentedly with the contents of her basket arranged in the most tempting order before her, and to this seductive spot she knew well that those little Misses who loved goodies, cakes, and tartlets would be sure to find their way. Betty charged high for her wares; but, as she was always obliging in the matter of credit the thoughtless girls cared very little that they paid double the shop prices for Betty’s cakes. The best girls in the school, certainly, never went to Betty; but Annie Forest, Susan Drummond, and several others had regular accounts with her, and few days passed that their young faces would not peep over the paling and their voices ask —
“What have you got to tempt me with to-day, Betty?”
It was, however, in the matter of stolen picnics, of grand feasts in the old attic, etc, etc, that Betty was truly great. No one so clever as she in concealing a basket of delicious eatables, no one knew better what school-girls liked. She undoubtedly charged her own prices, but what she gave was of the best, and Betty was truly in her element when she had an order from the young ladies of Lavender House for a grand secret feast.
“You shall have it, my pretties – you shall have it,” she would say, wrinkling up her bright blue eyes, and smiling broadly. “You leave it to Betty, my little loves; you leave it to Betty.”
On the occasion of the picnic to the fairies’ field Betty had, indeed, surpassed herself in the delicious eatables she had provided; all had gone smoothly, the basket had been placed in a secure hiding-place under the thick laurel. It was to be fetched away by Betty herself at an early hour on the following morning.
No wonder Susan was perplexed as she paced about and pretended to warm herself. It was a June evening, but the weather was still a little cold. Susan remembered now that. Betty had not come to her favourite station at the stile for several days. Was it possible that the old woman was ill? As this idea occurred to her, Susan became more alarmed. She knew that there was very little chance of the basket remaining long in concealment. Rover might any day remember his pleasant picnic with affection, and drag the white basket from under the laurel-bush. Michael the gardener would be certain to see it when next he cleaned up the back avenue. Oh, it was more than dangerous to leave it there, and yet Susan knew of no better hiding-place. A sudden idea came to her: she pulled out her pretty little watch, and saw that she need not return to the house for another half-hour. “Suppose she ran as fast as possible to Betty’s little cottage, and begged of the old woman to come by the first light in the morning and fetch away the basket?”
The moment Susan conceived this idea she resolved to put it into execution. She looked around her hastily; no teacher was in sight, Miss Good was away at the lodge, Miss Danesbury was playing with the little children. Mademoiselle, she knew, had gone indoors with a bad headache. She left the broad walk where she had been desired to stay, and, plunging into the shrubbery, soon reached Betty’s paling. In a moment she had climbed the bars, had jumped lightly into the field, and was running as fast as possible in the direction of Betty’s cottage. She reached the high road, and started and trembled violently as a carriage with some ladies and gentlemen passed her. She thought she recognised the faces of the two little Misses Bruce, but did not dare to look at them, and hurried panting along the road, and hoping she might be mistaken.
In less than a quarter of an hour she had reached Betty’s little cottage, and was standing trying to recover her breath by the shut door. The place had a deserted look, and several overripe cherries had fallen from the trees and were lying neglected on the ground. Susan knocked impatiently. There was no discernible answer. She had no time to wait, she lifted the latch, which yielded to her pressure, and went in.
Poor old Betty, crippled, and in severe pain with rheumatism, was lying on her little bed.
“Eh, dear – and is that you, my pretty Missy?” she asked, as Susan, hot and tired, came up to her side.
“Oh, Betty, are you ill?” asked Miss Drummond. “I came to tell you you have forgotten the basket.”
“No, my dear, no – not forgot. By no means that, lovey; but I has been took with the rheumatism this past week, and can’t move hand nor foot. I was wondering how you’d do without your cakes and tartlets, dear, and to think of them cherries lying there good for nothing on the ground is enough to break one’s ’eart.”
“So it is,” said Susan, giving an appreciative glance toward the open door. “They are beautiful cherries, and full of juice, I am sure. I’ll take a few, Betty, as I am going out, and pay you for them another day. But what I have come about now is the basket. You must get the basket away, however ill you are. If the basket is discovered we are all lost, and then good-bye to your gains.”
“Well, Missy, dear, if I could crawl on my hands and knees I’d go and fetch it, rather than you should be worried; but I can’t set fool to the ground at all. The doctor says as ’tis somethink like rheumatic fever as I has.”
“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” said Susan, not wasting any of her precious moments in pitying the poor suffering old woman. “What is to be done? I tell you, Betty, if that basket is found we are all lost.”
“But the laurel is very thick, lovey; it ain’t likely to be found – it ain’t, indeed.”
“I tell you it is likely to be found, you tiresome old woman, and you really must go for it or send for it. You really must.”
Old Betty began to ponder.
“There’s Moses,” she said, after a pause of anxious thought; “he’s a ’cute little chap, and he might go. He lives in the fourth cottage along the lane. Moses is his name – Moses Moore. I’d give him a pint of cherries for the job. If you wouldn’t mind sending Moses to me, Miss Susan, why, I’ll do my best; only it seems a pity to let anybody into your secrets, young ladies, but old Betty herself.”
“It is a pity,” said Susan; “but, under the circumstances, it can’t be helped. What cottage did you say this Moses lived in?”
“The fourth from here, down the lane, lovey – Moses is the lad’s name; he’s a freckled boy, with a cast in one eye. You send him up to me, dearie, but don’t mention the cherries, or he’ll be after stealing them. He’s a sad rogue, is Moses; but I think I can tempt him with the cherries.”
Susan did not wait to bid poor old Betty “good-bye,” but ran out of the cottage, shutting the door after her, and snatching up two or three ripe cherries to eat on her way. She was so far fortunate as to find the redoubtable Moses at home, and to convey him bodily to old Betty’s presence. The queer boy grinned horribly, and looked as wicked as boy could look; but on the subject of cherries he was undoubtedly susceptible, and after a good deal of haggling and insisting that the pint should be a quart, he expressed his willingness to start off at four o’clock on the following morning, and bring away the basket from under the laurel-tree.
Chapter Thirty Five
“You Are Welcome To Tell.”
Annie continued her walk. The circumstances of the last two months had combined to do for her what nothing had hitherto effected. When a little child she had known hardship and privation, she had passed through that experience which is metaphorically spoken of as “going down hill.” As a baby little Annie had been surrounded by comforts and luxuries, and her father and mother had lived in a large house, and kept a carriage, and Annie had two nurses to wait on herself alone. These were in the days before she could remember anything. With her first early memories came the recollection of a much smaller house, of much fewer servants, of her mother often in tears, and her father often away. Then there was no house at all that the Forests could call their own, only rooms of a tolerably cheerful character, and Annie’s nurse went away, and she look her daily walks by her mother’s side and slept in a little cot in her mother’s room. Then came a very, very sad day, when her mother lay cold and still and fainting on her bed, and her tall and handsome father caught Annie in his arms and pressed her to his heart, and told her to be a good child and to keep up her spirits, and, above all things, to take care of mother. Then her father had gone away; and though Annie expected him back, he did not come, and she and her mother went into poorer and shabbier lodgings, and her mother began to try her tear-dimmed eyes by working at church embroidery, and Annie used to notice that she coughed a good deal as she worked. Then there was another move, and this time Mrs Forest and her little daughter found themselves in one bedroom, and things began to grow very gloomy and food even was scarce. At last there was a change. One day a lady came into the dingy little room, and all of a sudden it seemed as if the sun had come out again. This lady brought comforts with her – toys and books for the child, good, brave words of cheer for the mother. At last Annie’s mother died, and she went away to Lavender House to live with this good friend who had made her mother’s dying hours easy.
“Annie, Annie,” said the dying mother, “I owe everything to Mrs Willis; we knew each other long ago when we were girls, and she has come to me now and made everything easy. When I am gone she will take care of you. Oh, my child, I cannot repay her; but will you try?”
“Yes, mother,” said little Annie, gazing full into her mother’s face with her sweet bright eyes, “I’ll – I’ll love her, mother; I’ll give her lots and lots of love.”
Annie had gone to Lavender House, and kept her word, for she had almost worshipped the good mistress who was so true and kind to her, and who had so befriended her mother. Through all the vicissitudes of her short existence Annie had, however, never lost one precious gift. Hers was an affectionate, but also a wonderfully bright, nature. It was as impossible for Annie to turn away from laughter and merriment as it would be for a flower to keep its head determinedly turned from the sun. In their darkest days Annie had managed to make her mother laugh; her little face was a sunbeam, her very naughtinesses were of a laughable character.
Her mother died – her father was still away, but Annie retained her brave and cheerful spirit, for she gave and received love. Mrs Willis loved her – she bestowed upon her amongst all her girls the tenderest glances, the most motherly caresses. The teachers undoubtedly corrected and even scolded her, but they could not help liking her, and even her worst scrapes made them smile. Annie’s companions adored her; the little children would do anything for their own Annie, and even the servants in the school said that there was no young lady in Lavender House fit to hold a candle to Miss Forest.
During the last half-year, however, things had been different. Suspicion and mistrust began to dog the footsteps of the bright young girl; she was no longer a universal favourite – some of the girls even openly expressed their dislike of her.
All this Annie could have borne, but for the fact that Mrs Willis joined in the universal suspicion. The old glance now never came to her eyes, nor the old tone to her voice. For the first time Annie’s spirits utterly flagged; she could not bear this universal coldness, this universal chill. She began to droop physically as well as mentally.
She was pacing up and down the walk, thinking very sadly, wondering vaguely if her father would ever return, and conscious of a feeling of more or less indifference to everything and everyone, when she was suddenly roused from her meditation by the patter of small feet and by a very eager little exclamation —
“Me tumming – me tumming, Annie!” and then Nan raised her charming face and placed her cool baby hand in Annie’s.
There was delicious comfort in the clasp of the little hand, and in the look of love and pleasure which lit up the small face.
“Me yiding from naughty nurse – me ’tay with ’oo, Annie – me love ’oo, Annie.”
Annie stooped down, kissed the little one, and lifted her into her arms.
“Why ky?” said Nan, who saw with consternation two big tears in Annie’s eyes; “dere, poor ickle Annie – me love ’oo – me buy ’oo a new doll.”
“Dearest little darling,” said Annie in a voice of almost passionate pain; then, with that wonderful instinct which made her in touch with all little children, she cheered up, wiped away her tears, and allowed laughter once more to wreathe her lips and fill her eyes. “Come, Nan,” she said, “you and I will have such a race.”
She placed the child on her shoulder, clasped the little hands securely round her neck, and ran to the sound of Nan’s shouts down the shady walk.
At the farther end Nan suddenly tightened her clasp, drew herself up, ceased to laugh, and said with some fright in her voice —
“Who dat?”
Annie, too, stood still with a sudden start, for the gypsy woman, Mother Rachel, was standing directly in their path.
“Go ’way, naughty woman,” said Nan, shaking her small hand imperiously.
The gypsy dropped a low curtsey, and spoke in a slightly mocking tone.
“A pretty little dear,” she said. “Yes, truly now, a pretty little winsome dear; and oh, what shoes! and little open-work socks! and I don’t doubt real lace trimming on all her little garments – I don’t doubt it a bit.”
“Go ’way – me don’t like ’oo,” said Nan. “Let’s wun back – gee, gee,” she said, addressing Annie, whom she had constituted into a horse for the time being.
“Yes, Nan; in one minute,” said Annie. “Please, Mother Rachel, what are you doing here?”
“Only waiting to see you, pretty Missie,” replied the tall gypsy. “You are the dear little lady who crossed my hand with silver that night in the wood. Eh, but it was a bonny night, with a bonny bright moon, and none of the dear little ladies meant any harm – no, no. Mother Rachel knows that.”
“Look here,” said Annie, “I’m not going to be afraid of you. I have no more silver to give you. If you like, you may go up to the house and tell what you have seen. I am very unhappy, and whether you tell or not can make very little difference to me now. Good-night; I am not the least afraid of you – you can do just as you please about telling Mrs Willis.”
“Eh, my dear?” said the gypsy; “do you think I’d work you any harm – you, and the seven other dear little ladies? No, not for the world, my dear – not for the world. You don’t know Mother Rachel when you think she’d be that mean.”
“Well, don’t come here again,” said Annie. “Good-night.”
She turned on her heel, and Nan shouted back —
“Go ’way, naughty woman – Nan don’t love ’oo, ’tall, ’tall.”
The gypsy stood still for a moment with a frown knitting her brows; then she slowly turned, and, creeping on all-fours through the underwood, climbed the hedge into the field beyond.
“Oh, no,” she laughed, after a moment; “the little Missy thinks she ain’t afraid of me; but she be. Trust Mother Rachel for knowing that much. I make no doubt,” she added after a pause, “that the little one’s clothes are trimmed with real lace. Well, little Missie Annie Forest, I can see with half an eye that you set store by that baby-girl. You had better not cross Mother Rachel’s whims, or she can punish you in a way you don’t think of.”
