Three Girls from School

While these thoughts were rushing through Annie’s mind she was brushing out her pretty golden hair and arranging it becomingly round her small head. Then she straightened and tidied her dress, and presently ran downstairs, her trim little figure quite stylish-looking for that old house, and pretty enough, in the rector’s opinion, to gladden any place which she chose to grace.

Old Mr Brooke loved Annie. She was all he possessed in the world. He had never married, and when his only brother, on dying, had left the child to his care, he had vowed to be a father to her, to bring her up well, and to do the best he could for her. Annie was the child of an English father and an Italian mother. In appearance she had taken in every respect after her father’s race, being fair, with all the attributes of the Saxon, but in her nature she had some of the craftiness which distinguishes the Italian. Hers was a difficult nature to fathom, and to a very high-minded man like the Rev. Maurice Brooke she was a problem he could never solve. For a couple of years past he had owned himself puzzled by Annie. When she was a little child she delighted him; but more and more, as she returned from school for each holiday, he felt that there was something behind. She was frank with him; she grumbled quite openly in his presence. These things he did not mind, but he was sure there was something behind the grumbling, and that fact puzzled and distressed him.

Still, he looked forward to the weeks which Annie spent at Rashleigh Rectory as the golden periods of his life. All the little pleasures and indulgences were kept for this time. “When my niece comes back we’ll do so-and-so,” was his favourite remark. “When Annie comes, Mrs Shelf, we must have that new tarpaulin put down; and don’t you think her room ought to be repapered and painted for her? Girls like pretty things, don’t they?”

But Mrs Shelf read Annie’s nature far more correctly than did her old uncle.

“If I were you, Mr Brooke,” she said, “I wouldn’t spend money on that girl until I knew what she was after. Maybe she won’t take to the room when it’s painted and papered.”

“Won’t take to it?” he replied. “But naturally she’ll take to it, Mrs Shelf, for it will be her own room, where, please God, she will sleep for many long years, until, indeed, she finds another home of her own.”

Mrs Shelf was silent when the rector said these things. But, somehow, the room was not papered, nor was the old paint renewed; and Annie failed to notice these facts.

“Well, my little girl,” he said on the present occasion, as they both sat down to supper in a small room which opened out of the study, “it’s a sight for sair een to see you back again; and well you look, Annie – well and bonny.” He looked at her admiringly. She was not at all a beautiful girl, but she was beautiful to him. “You have a look of my brother Geoffrey,” he said. “Ah, Geoffrey, dear fellow, was remarkably good-looking. Not that looks signify much, Annie; we ought never to set store by them. It is the beauty of the mind we ought to cultivate, my love.”

“Well,” said Annie, “I’d like to be handsome. I don’t see, for my part, why I should not have both. What do you think, uncle?”

“That would be as the Almighty chose,” he replied. “But come now, my love; time passes quickly. I often forget, myself, how the years run on. How old are you, my dearie?”

“I was seventeen my last birthday, Uncle Maurice; quite grown up, you know.”

“Why, to be sure, to be sure,” he replied.

“Your mother was married at seventeen, poor young thing! But in these days we are more sensible, and girls don’t take the burden of life on them while they are still children. You are a schoolgirl yet, Annie, and won’t be anything else for another year at least.”

“Oh, all right, uncle,” said Annie, who had no wish to change Lyttelton School for the dullness of Rashleigh Rectory.

“But the months fly on,” said the old man. “Help yourself to a roast-apple, my dear. And before we know where we are,” he continued, “you’ll have left school and be back here with me. I look forward to that time, my little Annie; there will be a power of things for you to do, and the parish will be all the better for your society.”

Annie shuffled her feet and grew red. The old rector did not especially notice her. He was absorbed in contemplation. He had eaten his large bowl of Quaker oats, and now he laid the spoon on his plate and gazed into the fire.

“It’s a fine thing,” he said, “to be able to help the poor and needy. I always say to myself, ‘When my bit Annie comes back we’ll do so-and-so. We’ll have more mothers’ meetings and classes for young women.’ There are some mill-hands near here, Annie, who are neglected in their spiritual part shamefully. They want a lady like yourself to understand them and to show them what girls ought to know. You might have sewing-classes, for instance; and you might read aloud to them just to interest them, you know. I have been thinking a lot about it. And then what do you say to a Sunday afternoon class, just in one of the big rooms here, for the mill-hands? It would be a pretty bit of work, and I wouldn’t be above catching them, so to speak, by guile – I mean that I would give them tea and cake. Mrs Shelf wouldn’t mind. We’d have to manage her, wouldn’t we, Annie?”

“Yes, uncle,” said Annie, yawning; “yes.”

“Then there’s a carving-class for the young men.”

“I wouldn’t mind that so much as the other,” said Annie suddenly.

“Now, that is really nice of you, my child, for those rough mill-hands are often very troublesome. I would always accompany you myself to the carving-class. We’d get our patterns from London, and you would encourage them a bit.”

“Only I can’t carve,” said Annie.

“Well, well, that needn’t be a difficulty; for it is easy to learn, I am told; and you might have lessons during your last term at school. Oh, there’ll be a deal for you to do, my pretty one, and no minute left unemployed; and you, all the time while you are so busy, the very sunshine of your old uncle’s life.”

“Am I, Uncle Maurice?” she asked.

“Are you that?” he replied. He rose and held out his arms to her. “Aren’t you just all I’ve got,” he said – “all I have got?”

She allowed him to kiss her, and even faintly responded, for she had made up her mind not to trouble him about Paris that night.

After a time he allowed her to go to bed, which she was exceedingly glad to do. But when she had flung herself in her bed and was quickly lost in slumber, the old man himself sat up and thought a great deal about her, and prayed for her not a little.

“She is a bonny lass, and a pretty one,” he said to himself; “and, thank the Lord! I don’t see a trace of that dark-eyed mother about her. She takes after Geoffrey, the best of men. Yes, she is a good child, and will settle down to my busy life here, I make no doubt, with great equanimity. I have much to be thankful for, and my Annie is the apple of my eye. All the same, I wish – I do wish – that she was just a little more responsive.”

The next day Annie awoke with the lark. She jumped up, and long before breakfast was out of doors. The house was shabby enough, but the Rectory garden was a place to revel in. The rector cared nothing about indoor decoration, but his hobby was his garden. Lawns with some of the finest turf in England rolled majestically away from the house towards the swift-flowing river at the other end of the grounds. There were gay parterres filled with bright flowers. There were shrubberies and paddocks, and even a labyrinth and an old Elizabethan walk where the yew-trees were cut into grotesque forms of foxes and griffins. There was an old sun-dial, which at one time used to interest Annie but which she had long ceased to notice; and there was a kitchen-garden, which ought to have delighted the heart of any young person; for not only were the vegetables first class, but here was to be found the best fruit in the neighbourhood. The rector was celebrated for his peaches and apricots, his pears, his apples, his nuts. He had a long vinery full of choice grapes, and there were hotbeds containing melons of the finest flavour; and there were even – and these were as a crown of all crowns to the old rector – pines growing here in perfection.

Annie was too self-loving and too keenly appreciative of the good things of life not to like the old garden. She forgot some of her grievances now as she walked here and there, helping herself indiscriminately to the ripest and beet fruit.

By-and-by the postman was seen coming up the avenue. Annie ran to meet him. She had been delayed for a day in leaving Lyttelton School, and she knew, therefore, that Mabel’s invitation would probably arrive at Rashleigh Rectory this morning. Yes; here it was in Mabel’s own writing. Annie looked at the outside of the envelope for a minute or two with intense appreciation; then she deliberately opened it and took out two letters. The first was from no less a person than Lady Lushington herself:

“My dear Miss Brooke, – I write by Mabel’s wish to beg of you to join my niece and myself here early next week. We are going to Switzerland, where we hope you will accompany us, but will remain here at the ‘Grand’ until Wednesday. If you can manage to be with us on Tuesday night, that will be quite time enough. I hope your uncle will spare you to us; and you may assure him that while you are my guest you will be treated as though you were my child, and will have no expense of any sort.

“Looking forward to making your acquaintance, and with my compliments to your uncle, believe me, yours sincerely, Henrietta Lushington.”

“Hurrah! hurrah!” cried Annie. She read the other letter, but more carelessly; Lady Lushington’s was the important one. Mabel wrote:

“Dear Annie, – It is all right. Don’t fail to be with us on Tuesday night. Aunt Henrietta will send Parker to meet you at the Gare du Nord, and you will doubtless find some escort to bring you to Paris. It’s great fun here, although the weather is very hot, and we are dying to be away amongst the cool mountains of Switzerland. Aunt Henrietta goes to all the fashionable hotels, and dresses exquisitely, so if you can screw a little money out of that old flint of an uncle of yours, so much the better; but even if you are shabby, I dare say I can manage to rig you up. – Your affectionate friend, Mabel Lushington.”

“P.S.– That awful bill has not come yet! I shake when I think of it.

“P.S. Number 2. – I am very glad now that I took your advice. It is heavenly to be emancipated. I wouldn’t be back at that odious school for a kingdom. Do come quickly.”

Armed with these letters, Annie now entered the same little room where she and her uncle had partaken of their supper on the previous night.

Chapter Ten

The Illness

Mr Brooke was not very well. He was subject to very severe headaches, and had at these times to stay quiet. Annie might have noticed by his languid brown eyes and his slow and somewhat feeble step that something was wrong with him, had she not been so absorbed in her own pleasure.

“Good-morning, Uncle Maurice,” she said. “I hope you are hungry for breakfast; for if you are not, I am.”

“I can’t manage much this morning, my love,” said the old rector. “Just a cup of tea, please, and – and – well, yes – a very small piece of toast.”

“Are you ill?” said Annie a little crossly, for she had small sympathy for suffering.

“Not exactly, my love. I have a headache; but it will pass.”

“Oh, if you only knew how I suffered from them at school,” said Annie in a careless tone. “Dear me! isn’t this room too hot, Uncle Maurice? Do you mind if I open the window?”

“No, my love,” he answered. But when she flung wide the window he shivered slightly, although he would not show his discomfort for the world.

Annie helped herself to the excellent breakfast provided by Mrs Shelf. She was really hungry, and was in excellent spirits. Things were turning out well. Even the Rectory would be endurable if she might leave it on Monday. She made a careful calculation in her own mind. This was Friday morning. She would have to go to London on Monday night.

She must sleep at a hotel; that would be all the better fun. Then she would start on Tuesday from Victoria Station and arrive in Paris that night. Nothing mattered after that; all would be golden after that. Her reaping-time would arrive; her harvest would be ready for her to gather. Oh yes, she was a happy and contented girl this morning!

“How nice the home-made bread is!” she said; “and the butter is so good! Have you got Cowslip and Dewlip still, Uncle Maurice?”