Kitabı oku: «A World of Girls: The Story of a School», sayfa 17
Chapter Forty Six
For Love Of Nan
Now was Annie’s time. “Tiger,” she said, for she had heard the men calling the dog’s name. “I want to go right down into that hole in the ground, and you are to come with me. Don’t let us lose a moment, good dog.”
The dog wagged his tail, capered about in front of Annie, and then with a wonderful shrewdness ran before her to the broken wall, where he stood with his head bent downwards and his eyes fixed on the ground.
Annie pulled and tugged at the loose stones; they were so heavy and so cunningly arranged that she wondered how the little maid, who was smaller than herself, had managed to remove them. She saw quickly, however, that they were arranged with a certain leverage, and that the largest stone that which formed the real entrance to the underground passage, was balanced in its place in such a fashion that when she leant on a certain portion of it, it moved aside, and allowed plenty of room for her to go down into the earth.
Very dark and dismal and uninviting did the rude steps, which led nobody knew where, appear. For one moment Annie hesitated; but the thought of Nan hidden somewhere in this awful wretchedness nerved her courage.
“Go first, Tiger, please,” she said, and the dog scampered down, sniffing the earth as he went. Annie followed him, but she had scarcely got her head below the level of the ground before she found herself in total and absolute darkness; she had unwittingly touched the heavy stone, which had swung back into its place. She heard Tiger sniffing below, and, calling to him to keep by her side, she went very carefully down and down and down, until at last she knew by the increase of air that she must have come to the end of the narrow entrance passage.
She was now able to stand upright, and raising her hand, she tried in vain to find a roof. The room where she stood, then, must be lofty. She went forward in the utter darkness very, very slowly; suddenly her head again came in contact with the roof; she made a few steps farther on, and then found that to proceed at all she must go on her hands and knees. She bent down and peered through the darkness.
“We’ll go on, Tiger,” she said, and, holding the dog’s collar and clinging to him for protection, she crept along the narrow passage.
Suddenly she gave an exclamation of joy – at the other end of this gloomy passage was light – faint twilight surely, but still undoubted light, which came down from some chink in the outer world. Annie came to the end of the passage, and, standing upright, found herself suddenly in a room; a very small and miserable room, certainly, but with the twilight shining through it, which revealed not only that it was a room, but a room which contained a heap of straw, a three-legged stool, and two or three cracked cups and saucers. Here, then, was Mother Rachel’s lair, and here she must look for Nan.
The darkness had been so intense that even the faint twilight of this little chamber had dazzled Annie’s eyes for a moment; the next, however, her vision became clear. She saw that the straw bed contained a bundle; she went near – out of the wrapped-up bundle of shawls appeared the head of a child. The child slept, and moaned in its slumbers.
Annie bent over it and said, “Thank God!” in a tone of rapture, and then, stooping down, she passionately kissed the lips of little Nan.
Nan’s skin had been dyed with the walnut-juice, her pretty soft hair had been cut short, her dainty clothes had been changed for the most ragged gipsy garments, but still she was undoubtedly Nan, the child whom Annie had come to save.
From her uneasy slumbers the poor little one awoke with a cry of terror. She could not recognise Annie’s changed face, and clasped her hands before her eyes, and said piteously —
“Me want to go home – go ’way, naughty woman, me want my Annie.”
“Little darling!” said Annie, in her sweetest tones. The changed face had not appealed to Nan, but the old voice went straight to her baby heart; she stopped crying and looked anxiously toward the entrance of the room.
“Turn in, Annie – me here, Annie – little Nan want ’oo.”
Annie glanced around her in despair. Suddenly her quick eyes lighted on a jug of water. She flew to it, and washed and laved her face.
“Coming, darling,” she said, as she tried to remove the hateful dye. She succeeded partly, and when she came back, to her great joy, the child recognised her.
“Now, little precious, we will get out of this as fast as we can,” said Annie, and clasping Nan tightly in her arms, she prepared to return by the way she had come. Then and there, for the first time, there flashed across her memory the horrible fact that the stone door had swung back into its place, and that by no possible means could she open it. She and Nan and Tiger were buried in a living tomb, and must either stay there and perish, or await the tender mercies of the cruel Mother Rachel.
Nan, with her arms tightly clasped round Annie’s neck, began to cry fretfully. She was impatient to get out of this dismal place; she was no longer oppressed by fears, for with the Annie whom she loved she felt absolutely safe; but she was hungry and cold and uncomfortable, and it seemed but a step, to little inexperienced Nan, from Annie’s arms to her snug, cheerful nursery at Lavender House.
“Turn, Annie – turn home, Annie,” she begged, and, when Annie did not stir, she began to weep.
In truth, the poor, brave little girl was sadly puzzled, and her first gleam of returning hope lay in the remembrance of Zillah’s words, that there were generally two entrances to these old underground forts. Tiger, who seemed thoroughly at home in this little room, and had curled himself up comfortably on the heap of straw, had probably often been here before. Perhaps Tiger knew the way to the second entrance. Annie called him to her side.
“Tiger,” she said, going down on her knees, and looking full into his ugly but intelligent face, “Nan and I want to go out of this.”
Tiger wagged his stumpy tail.
“We are hungry, Tiger, and we want something to eat, and you’d like a bone, wouldn’t you?”
Tiger’s tail went with ferocious speed, and he licked Annie’s hand.
“There’s no use going back that way, dear dog,” continued the girl, pointing with her arm in the direction they had come. “The door is fastened, Tiger, and we can’t get out. We can’t get out because the door is shut.”
The dog’s tail had ceased to wag; he took in the situation, for his whole expression showed dejection, and he drooped his head.
It was now quite evident to Annie that Tiger had been here before, and that on some other occasion in his life he had wanted to get out and could not because the door was shut.
“Now, Tiger,” said Annie, speaking cheerfully, and rising to her feet, “we must get out. Nan and I are hungry, and you want your bone. Take us out the other way, good Tiger – the other way, dear dog.”
She moved instantly toward the little passage; the dog followed her.
“The other way,” she said, and she turned her back on the long narrow passage, and took a step or two into complete darkness. The dog began to whine, caught hold of her dress, and tried to pull her back.
“Quite right, Tiger, we won’t go that way,” said Annie instantly. She returned into the dimly-lighted room.
“Find a way – And a way out, Tiger,” she said.
The dog evidently understood her; he moved restlessly about the room. Finally he got up on the bed, pulled and scratched and tore away the straw at the upper end, then, wagging his tail, flew to Annie’s side. She came back with him. Beneath the straw was a tiny, tiny trap-door.
“Oh, Tiger!” said the girl; she went down on her knees, and, finding she could not stir it, wondered if this also was kept in its place by a system of balancing. She was right; after a very little pressing the door moved aside, and Annie saw four or five rudely carved steps.
“Come, Nan,” she said joyfully, “Tiger has saved us; these steps must lead us out.”
The dog, with a joyful whine, went down first, and Annie, clasping Nan tightly in her arms, followed him. Four, five, six steps they went down; then, to Annie’s great joy, she found that the next step began to ascend. Up and up she went, cheered by a welcome shaft of light. Finally she, Nan, and the dog found themselves emerging into the open air, through a hole which might have been taken for a large rabbit burrow.
Chapter Forty Seven
Rescued
The girl, the child, and the dog found themselves in a comparatively strange country – Annie had completely lost her bearings. She looked around her for some sign of the gipsies’ encampment; but whether she had really gone a greater distance than she imagined in those underground vaults, or whether the tents were hidden in some hollow of the ground, she did not know; she was only conscious that she was in a strange country, that Nan was clinging to her and crying for her breakfast, and that Tiger was sniffing the air anxiously. Annie guessed that Tiger could take them back to the camp, but this was by no means her wish. When she emerged out of the underground passage she was conscious for the first time of a strange and unknown experience. Absolute terror seized the brave child: she trembled from head to foot, her head ached violently, and the ground on which she stood seemed to reel, and the sky to turn round. She sat down for a moment on the green grass. What ailed her? where was she? how could she get home? Nan’s little piteous wail, “Me want my bekfas’, me want my nursie, me want Hetty,” almost irritated her.
“Oh, Nan,” she said at last piteously, “have you not got your own Annie? Oh, Nan, dear little Nan, Annie feels so ill!”
Nan had the biggest and softest of baby hearts – breakfast, nurse, Hetty, were all forgotten in the crowning desire to comfort Annie. She climbed on her knee and stroked her face and kissed her lips.
“’Oo better now?” she said in a tone of baby inquiry.
Annie roused herself with a great effort.
“Yes, darling,” she said; “we will try and get home. Come, Tiger. Tiger, dear, I don’t want to go back to the gipsies; take me the other way – take me to Oakley.”
Tiger again sniffed the air, looked anxiously at Annie, and trotted on in front. Little Nan in her ragged gipsy clothes walked sedately by Annie’s side.
“Where ’oo s’oes?” she said, pointing to the girl’s bare feet.
“Gone, Nan – gone. Never mind, I’ve got you. My little treasure, my little love, you’re safe at last.”
As Annie tottered, rather than walked, down a narrow path which led directly through a field of standing corn, she was startled by the sudden apparition of a bright-eyed girl, who appeared so suddenly in her path that she might have been supposed to have risen out of the very ground.
The girl stared hard at Annie, fixed her eyes inquiringly on Nan and Tiger, and then, turning on her heel, dashed up the path, went through a turn-stile, across the road, and into a cottage.
“Mother,” she exclaimed, “I said she warn’t a real gipsy: she’s a-coming back, and her face is all streaked like, and she has a little ’un along with her, and a dawg, and the only one as is gipsy is the dawg. Come and look at her, mother; oh, she is a fine take-in!”
The round-faced, good-humoured looking mother, whose name was Mrs Williams, had been washing and putting away the breakfast things when her daughter entered. She now wiped her hands hastily and came to the cottage door.
“Cross the road, and come to the stile, mother,” said the energetic Peggy – “oh, there she be a-creeping along – oh, ain’t she a take-in?”
“’Sakes alive!” ejaculated Mrs Williams, “the girl is ill! why, she can’t keep herself steady! There! I knew she’d fall; ah! poor little thing – poor little thing.”
It did not take Mrs Williams an instant to reach Annie’s side; and in another moment she had lifted her in her strong arms and carried her into the cottage, Peggy lifting Nan and following in the rear, while Tiger walked by their sides.
Chapter Forty Eight
Dark Days
A whole week had passed, and there were no tidings whatever of little Nan or of Annie Forest. No one at Lavender House had heard a word about them; the police came and went, detectives even arrived from London, but there were no traces whatever of the missing children.
The Midsummer holiday was now close at hand, but no one spoke of it or thought of it. Mrs Willis told the teachers that the prizes should be distributed, but she said she could invite no guests and could allow of no special festivities. Miss Danesbury and Miss Good repeated her words to the school-girls, who answered without hesitation that they did not wish for feasting and merriment; they would rather the day passed unnoticed. In truth, the fact that their baby was gone, that their favourite and prettiest and brightest school-mate had also disappeared, caused such gloom, such distress, such apprehension that even the most thoughtless of those girls could scarcely have laughed or been merry. School-hours were still kept after a fashion, but there was no life in the lessons. In truth, it seemed as if the sun would never shine again at Lavender House.
Hester was ill; not very ill – she had no fever, she had no cold; she had, as the good doctor explained it, nothing at all wrong, except that her nervous system had got a shock.
“When the little one is found, Miss Hetty will be quite well again,” said the good doctor: but the little one had not been found yet, and Hester had completely broken down. She lay on her bed, saying little or nothing, eating scarcely anything, sleeping not at all. All the girls were kind to her, and each one in the school took turns in trying to comfort her; but no one could win a smile from Hester, and even Mrs Willis failed utterly to reach or touch her heart.
Mr Everard came once to see her, but he had scarcely spoken many words when Hester broke into an agony of weeping, and begged him to go away. He shook his head when he left her, and said sadly to himself —
“That girl has got something on her mind; she is grieving for more than the loss of her little sister.”
The twentieth of June came at last, and the girls sat about in groups in the pleasant, shady garden, and talked of the very sad breaking-up day they were to have on the morrow, and wondered if, when they returned to school again, Annie and little Nan would have been found. Cecil Temple, Dora Russell, and one or two others were sitting together, and whispering in low voices. Mary Price joined them, and said anxiously —
“I don’t think the doctor is satisfied about Hester. Perhaps I ought not to have listened, but I heard him talking to Miss Danesbury just now; he said she must be got to sleep somehow, and she is to have a composing draught to-night.”
“I wish poor Hetty would not turn away from us all,” said Cecil; “I wish she would not quite give up hope; I do feel sure that Nan and Annie will be found yet.”
“Have you been praying about it, Cecil?” asked Mary, kneeling on the grass, laying her elbows on Cecil’s knees, and looking into her face. “Do you say this because you have faith?”
“I have prayed, and I have faith,” replied Cecil in her simple, earnest way. “Why, Dora, what is the matter?”
“Only that it’s horrid to leave like this,” said Dora; “I – I thought my last day at school would have been so different, and somehow I am sorry I spoke so much against that poor little Annie.”
Here Cecil suddenly rose from her seat, and, going up to Dora, clasped her arms round her neck.
“Thank you, Dora,” she said with fervour; “I love you for those words.”
“Here comes Susy,” remarked Mary Price. “I really don’t think anything would move Susy; she’s just as stolid and indifferent as ever. Ah, Susy, here’s a place for you – oh, what is the matter with Phyllis? see how she’s rushing toward us! Phyllis, my dear, don’t break your neck.”
Susan, with her usual nonchalance, seated herself by Dora Russell’s side. Phyllis burst excitedly into the group.
“I think,” she exclaimed, “I really, really do think that news has come of Annie’s father. Nora said that Janet told her that a foreign letter came this morning to Mrs Willis, and somebody saw Mrs Willis talking to Miss Danesbury – oh, I forgot, only I know that the girls of the school are whispering the news that Mrs Willis cried, and Miss Danesbury said, ‘After waiting for him four years, and now, when he comes back, he won’t find her!’ Oh, dear, oh, dear! there is Danesbury. Cecil, darling love, go to her, and find out the truth.”
Cecil rose at once, went across the lawn, said a few words to Miss Danesbury, and came back to the other girls.
“It is true,” she said sadly; “there came a letter this morning from Captain Forest; he will be at Lavender House in a week. Miss Danesbury says it is a wonderful letter, and he has been shipwrecked, and on an island by himself for ever so long; but he is safe now, and will soon be in England. Miss Danesbury says Mrs Willis can scarcely speak about that letter; she is in great, great trouble, and Miss Danesbury confesses that they are all more anxious than they dare to admit about Annie and little Nan.”
At this moment the sound of carriage wheels was heard on the drive, and Susan, peering forward to see who was arriving, remarked in her usual nonchalant manner —
“Only the little Misses Bruce in their basket-carriage – what dull-looking women they are!”
Nobody commented, however, on her observation, and gradually the little group of girls sank into absolute silence.
From where they sat they could see the basket-carriage waiting at the front entrance – the little ladies had gone inside, all was perfect silence and stillness.
Suddenly on the stillness a sound broke – the sound of a girl running quickly; nearer and nearer came the steps, and the four or five who sat together under the oak-tree noticed the quick panting breath, and felt even before a word was uttered that evil tidings were coming to them. They all started to their feet, however; they all uttered a cry of horror and distress when Hester herself broke into their midst. She was supposed to be lying down in a darkened room, she was supposed to be very ill – what was she doing here?
“Hetty!” exclaimed Cecil.
Hester pushed past her; she rushed up to Susan Drummond, and seized her arm.
“News has come!” she panted; “news – news at last! Nan is found! – and Annie – they are both found – but Annie is dying. Come, Susan, come this moment; we must both tell what we know now.”
By her impetuosity, by the intense fire of her passion and agony, even Susan was electrified into leaving her seat and going with her.
Chapter Forty Nine
Two Confessions
Hester dragged her startled and rather unwilling companion in through the front entrance, past some agitated-looking servants who stood about in the hall, and through the velvet curtains into Mrs Willis’s boudoir.
The Misses Bruce were there, and Mrs Willis in her bonnet and cloak was hastily packing some things into a basket.
“I – I must speak to you,” said Hester, going up to her governess. “Susan and I have got something to say, and we must say it here, now at once?”
“No, not now, Hester,” replied Mrs Willis, looking for a moment into her pupil’s agitated face. “Whatever you and Susan Drummond have to tell cannot be listened to by me at this moment. I have not an instant to lose.”
“You are going to Annie?” asked Hester.
“Yes; don’t keep me. Good-bye, my dears; good-bye.”
Mrs Willis moved toward the door. Hester, who felt almost beside herself, rushed after her, and caught her arm.
“Take us with you, take Susy and me with you – we must we must see Annie before she dies.”
“Hush, my child,” said Mrs Willis very quietly; “try to calm yourself. Whatever you have got to say shall be listened to later on – now moments are precious, and I cannot attend to you. Calm yourself, Hester, and thank God for your dear little sister’s safety. Prepare yourself to receive her, for the carriage which takes me to Annie will bring little Nan home.”
Mrs Willis left the room, and Hester threw herself on hen knees and covered her face with her trembling hands. Presently she was aroused by a light touch on her arm; it was Susan Drummond.
“I may go now, I suppose, Hester? You are not quite determined to make a fool of me, are you?”
“I have determined to expose you, you coward, you mean, mean girl!” answered Hester, springing to her feet. “Come, I have no idea of letting you go. Mrs Willis won’t listen – we will find Mr Everard.”
Whether Susan would really have gone with Hester remains to be proved, but just at that moment all possibility of retreat was cut away from her by Miss Agnes Bruce, who quietly entered Mrs Willis’s private sitting-room, followed by the very man Hester was about to seek.
“I thought it best, my dear,” she said, turning apologetically to Hester, “to go at once for our good clergyman; you can tell him all that is in your heart, and I will leave you. Before I go, however. I should like to tell you how I found Annie and little Nan.”
Hester made no answer; just for a brief moment she raised her eyes to Miss Agnes’s kind face, then they sought the floor.
“The story can be told in a few words, dear,” said the little lady. “A work-woman of the name of Williams, whom my sister and I have employed for years, and who lives near Oakley, called on us this morning to apologise for not being able to finish some needlework. She told us that she had a sick child, and also a little girl of three, in her house. She said she had found the child, in ragged gipsy garments, fainting in a field. She took her into her house, and, on undressing her, found that she was no true gipsy, but that her face and hands and arms had been dyed; she said the little one had been treated in a similar manner. Jane’s suspicions and mine were instantly roused, and we went back with the woman to Oakley, and round, as we had anticipated, that the children were little Nan and Annie. The sad thing is that Annie is in high fever, and knows no one. We waited there until the doctor arrived, who spoke very, very seriously of her case. Little Nan is well, and asked for you.”
With these last words Miss Agnes Bruce softly left the room, closing the door after her.
“Now, Susan,” said Hester, without an instant’s pause; “come, let us tell Mr Everard of our wickedness. Oh, sir,” she added, raising her eyes to the clergyman’s face, “if Annie dies I shall go mad. Oh, I cannot, cannot bear life if Annie dies!”
“Tell me what is wrong, my poor child,” said Mr Everard. He laid his hand on her shoulder, and gradually and skillfully drew from the agitated and miserable girl the story of her sin, of her cowardice, and of her deep, though until now unavailing repentance. How from the first she had hated and disliked Annie; how unjustly she had felt toward her; how she had longed and hoped Annie was guilty; and how, when at last the clew was put into her hands to prove Annie’s absolute innocence, she had determined not to use it.
“From the day Nan was lost,” continued Hester, “it has been all agony and all repentance; but, oh, I was too proud to tell! I was too proud to humble myself to the very dust!”
“But not now,” said the clergyman very gently.
“No, no; not now. I care for nothing now in all the world except that Annie may live.”
“You don’t mind the fact that Mrs Willis and all your school-fellows must know of this, and must – must judge you accordingly?”
“They can’t think worse of me than I think of myself. I only want Annie to live.”
“No, Hester,” answered Mr Everard, “you want more than that – you want far more than that. It may be that God will take Annie Forest away. We cannot tell. With Him alone are the issues of life or death. What you really want, my child, is the forgiveness of the little girl you have wronged, and the forgiveness of your Father in heaven.” Hester began to sob wildly.
“If – if she dies – may I see her first?” she gasped.
“Yes; I will try and promise you that. Now, will you go to your room? I must speak to Miss Drummond alone; she is a far worse culprit than you.”
Mr Everard opened the door for Hester, who went silently out.
“Meet me in the chapel to-night,” he whispered low in her car, “I will talk with you and pray with you there.”
He closed the door, and came back to Susan.
All throughout this interview his manner had been very gentle to Hester; but the clergyman could be stern, and there was a gleam of very righteous anger in his eyes as he turned to the sullen girl who leaned heavily against the table.
“This narrative of Hester Thornton’s is, of course, quite true, Miss Drummond?”
“Oh, yes; there seems to be no use in denying that,” said Susan.
“I must insist on your telling me the exact story of your sin. There is no use in your attempting to deny anything; only the utmost candour on your part can now save you from being publicly expelled.”
“I am willing to tell,” answered Susan. “I meant no harm; it was done as a bit of fun. I had a cousin at home who was very clever at drawing caricatures, and I happened to have nothing to do one day, and I was alone in Annie’s bedroom, and I thought I’d like to see what she kept in her desk. I always had a fancy for collecting odd keys, and I found one on my bunch which fitted her desk exactly. I opened it, and I found such a smart little caricature of Mrs Willis. I sent the caricature to my cousin, and begged of her to make an exact copy of it. She did so, and I put Annie’s back in her desk, and pasted the other into Cecil’s book. I didn’t like Dora Russell, and I wrapped up the sweeties in her theme; but I did the other for pure fun, for I knew Cecil would be so shocked; but I never guessed the blame would fall on Annie. When I found it did, I felt inclined to tell once or twice, but it seemed too much trouble, and, besides, I knew Mrs Willis would punish me, and, of course, I didn’t wish that.
“Dora Russell was always very nasty to me, and when I found she was putting on such airs, and pretending she could write such a grand essay for the prize, I thought I’d take down her pride a bit. I went to her desk, and I got some of the rough copy of the thing she was calling ‘The River,’ and I sent it off to my cousin, and my cousin made up such a ridiculous paper, and she hit off Dora’s writing to the life, and, of course, I had to put it into Dora’s desk and tear up her real copy. It was very unlucky Hester being in the room. Of course I never guessed that, or I wouldn’t have gone. That was the night we all went with Annie to the fairies’ field. I never meant to get Hester into a scrape, nor Annie either, for that matter; but, of course, I couldn’t be expected to tell on myself.”
Susan related her story in her usual monotonous and singsong voice. There was no trace of apparent emotion on her face, or of regret in her tones. When she had finished speaking Mr Everard was absolutely silent.
“I took a great deal of trouble,” continued Susan, after a pause, in a slightly fretful key. “It was really nothing but a joke, and I don’t see why such a fuss should have been made. I know I lost a great deal of sleep trying to manage that twine business round my foot. I don’t think I shall trouble myself playing any more tricks upon school-girls – they are not worth it.”
“You’ll never play any more tricks on these girls,” said Mr Everard, rising to his feet, and suddenly filling the room and reducing Susan to an abject silence by the ring of his stern, deep voice. “I take it upon me, in the absence of your mistress, to pronounce your punishment. You leave Lavender House in disgrace this evening. Miss Good will take you home, and explain to your parents the cause of your dismissal. You are not to see any of your school-fellows again. Your meanness, your cowardice, your sin require no words on my part to deepen their vileness. Through pure wantonness you have cast a cruel shadow on an innocent young life. If that girl dies, you indeed are not blameless in the cause of her early removal, for through you her heart and spirit were broken. Miss Drummond, I pray God you may at least repent and be sorry. There are some people mentioned in the Bible who are spoken of as past feeling. Wretched girl, while there is yet time, pray that you may not belong to them. Now I must leave you, but I shall lock you in. Miss Good will come for you in about an hour to take you away.”
Susan Drummond sank down on the nearest seat, and began to cry softly; one or two pin-pricks from Mr Everard’s stern words may possibly have reached her shallow heart – no one can tell. She left Lavender House that evening, and none of the girls who had lived with her as their school-mate heard of her again.
