Three Girls from School

“Oh, what is it?” said Annie. “Why do you follow me?”

“I want you to go at once to fetch the doctor. I have ordered Dobbin to be saddled, and Billy will bring him round to the front door for you. Do rush upstairs and put on your riding-habit. Be quick, child; be quick.”

Annie flew upstairs. The village of Rashleigh was between three and four miles away, for the old parish was a very extensive one, and the Rectory happened to be situated a long way from the village.

Annie had just sprung into the saddle, and was arranging her habit preparatory to riding to Rashleigh, when Mrs Shelf came out.

“Take this to the butcher’s, Annie,” she said, handing the girl a letter, “and be sure you get a receipt from him. Ask him to give you what I have ordered on this piece of paper, and bring it back with you.”

“All right,” said Annie carelessly. She started on her ride. When she had gone a very short way she dropped the reins on the old pony’s neck and began to think. She had never for a single moment expected the obstacle which now stood between her and her desires. She had thought that she could easily get round Uncle Maurice, but she had not really analysed his character. He was unselfish of the unselfish – that she knew; but she had failed to remember that he was a man who was always actuated by the very highest religious principles. He was, in short, unworldly. To do right meant far more with him than to be great and grand and rich and powerful. All those things which to Annie meant life and happiness were less than nothing to Uncle Maurice. Lady Lushington might be the richest and the grandest woman on earth, but if she was not also a good woman nothing would induce him to entrust one so precious as Annie to her care. The rector would make his inquiries; nothing that Annie could do would stop him. Even supposing the result were favourable – which Annie rather doubted, for she knew quite well that Lady Lushington was a most worldly woman – the plans made for her by the great lady in Paris could not be carried out. It was already too late to post a letter to Mrs Lyttelton that day; even if she were still at Lyttelton School, she could not get it before Sunday morning, and her reply, under the most favourable circumstances, could not reach the little old Welsh Rectory until Tuesday morning. But in all probability Mr Brooke’s letter would have to follow Mrs Lyttelton, who had doubtless long before now left Hendon. Mrs Lyttelton’s answer would, therefore, be late, and when it came it would most likely not be what Annie desired. Whatever happened, Mrs Lyttelton would tell the truth; she was the sort of woman who never shirked her duties.

At the best, therefore, Annie could not reach the Grand Hotel in Paris by Tuesday night, and at the worst she could not go at all. Was she, who had sinned so deeply in order to obtain her heart’s desire, to be balked of everything at the eleventh hour? Was Priscilla to have things to her liking? Was Mabel to have a great and royal time? And was Annie to be left alone – all alone – in the hideous Rectory, with one stupid woman to talk to her about preserves and pickles, and one stupid old man? Oh, well, he was not quite that; he was a dear old uncle, but nevertheless he was rather prosy, and she was young; she could not endure her life at the Rectory. Something must be done.

She was thinking these thoughts when she suddenly saw advancing to meet her a gig which contained no less a person than Dr Brett.

“Oh doctor!” cried the girl, riding up to him, “will you please call at the Rectory? How lucky it is that I should have met you! I was going to Rashleigh to leave you a message.”

“Welcome back from school, Miss Annie,” said Dr Brett, a stout, elderly man with a florid face. “Is anything wrong, my dear?” he added.

“I don’t think that there is; but Uncle Maurice is fanciful, and Mrs Shelf more so. Will you just look in and give uncle something to put him right?”

“Of course I will go at once. But, my dear Miss Annie, you are mistaken when you call the rector fanciful; I never knew any one less so. I have often told him that he overworks, and that he ought to be careful. It is in the head that the mischief lies; and he is an old man, my dear Miss Annie, and has led a strenuous life. I am glad that you met me; it will save time.”

The doctor drove away, and Annie’s first intention was to turn her pony’s steps back again in the direction of Rashleigh Rectory, but as she was about to do so her hand came in contact with the letter addressed to Dawson the butcher. She might as well take it on; anything was better than dawdling away her time at the dull Rectory. Then, too, she could post her letter herself to Mabel, adding something to it so as to assure her friend that the question of joining her was only postponed. Besides – but this was an afterthought – there were some things wanted at Dawson’s. Annie again touched the letter, and as she did so her eyes rested on the signature. It was in her uncle’s well-known hand. She was to give this letter to Dawson, and he was to give her a receipt. A receipt meant that he was to acknowledge some money.

Annie’s heart gave a sudden leap. Was it possible that there was money in the letter? She felt the crimson colour rushing to her cheeks; a suffocating feeling just for a minute visited her heart. Then, urging the pony forward, she rode as fast as she could in the direction of Rashleigh.

Chapter Twelve

Her Great Sin

No one would have supposed that Annie Brooke, brought up so carefully by such an uncle as the Rev. Maurice Brooke, would so easily yield to one temptation after another. But it is one of the most surprising and true things in life that it is the first wrong-doing that counts. It is over the first wrong action that we struggle and hesitate. We shrink away then from the edge of the abyss, and if we do yield to temptation our consciences speak loudly.

But conscience is of so delicate a fibre, so sensitive an organisation, that if she is neglected her voice grows feeble. She ceases to reproach when reproach is useless, and so each fall, be it great or little, is felt less than the last.

A few months ago, even in her young life, Annie would not have believed it possible that she could have brought herself to open her uncle’s letter. Nevertheless, a mile out of Rashleigh she did so. Within the letter lay a cheque. It was an open cheque, payable to bearer and signed by the rector. The cheque was for twenty pounds. A bill of the butcher’s lay within. This bill amounted to twenty pounds. The rector, therefore, was sending Dawson, the well-known village butcher, a cheque for twenty pounds to pay the yearly account. It was the fashion at Rashleigh for the principal trades-people to be paid once a year. This twenty pounds, therefore, stood for the supply of meat of various sorts which was used at the Rectory during the year.

Twenty pounds! Annie looked at it. Her eyes shone. “Take this, and you are all right,” whispered a voice. “With this you can easily get off to London, and from there to Paris. All you want is money. Well, here is money. You must write to your uncle when you get to Paris, and confess to him then. He will forgive you. He will be shocked; but he will forgive you. Of course he will.”

Annie considered the whole position. “I have done a lot of uncomfortable things,” she thought. “I managed that affair of the essays, and I used poor Susan Martin’s poems for my purpose; and – and – I have got Mabel into no end of a scrape; it is my duty to see poor Mabel through. This thing is horrid! I know it is. I hate myself for doing it; but, after all, the money has been thrown in my way. Twenty pounds! I can buy some little articles of dress, too. Dawson will cash this for me; oh, of course he will. It does seem as if I were meant to do it; it is the only way out. Uncle Maurice is terrible when he takes, as it were, the bit between his teeth. Yes, I must do it; yes, I will. It is the only, only way.”

Before Annie and her pony had gone another quarter of a mile Dawson’s bill had been torn into hundreds of tiny fragments, which floated away on the summer breeze, and the open cheque in the old rector’s handwriting, with his signature at the bottom and his name endorsing it behind, was folded carefully up in Annie’s purse.

It was a pretty-looking girl – for excitement always added to Annie’s charms – who rode at last into the little village. She went straight to Dawson’s, sprang off her pony, and entered the shop.

Old Dawson, who had known her from her babyhood, welcomed her back with effusion.

“Dear me, now, miss,” he said, “I am that glad to see you! How I wish my missis was in! Why, you have grown into quite a young lady, Miss Annie.”

“Of course,” replied Annie, “I am grown up, although I am not leaving school just yet. Please, Mr Dawson, I want you to give me – ”

She took a piece of paper from her pocket and laid it on the counter. The man glanced at Mrs Shelf’s orders, and desiring a foreman to attend to them, returned to talk to Annie.

“And please,” continued the girl, her heart now jumping into her mouth, “uncle would be so much obliged if you could cash this for him.”

Dawson glanced at the cheque.

“Of course, miss,” he said. “How will you have it?”

“In gold, please,” said Annie.

“I can give you fifteen pounds in gold, miss. Will you take the rest in a five-pound note?”

Annie agreed. Two or three minutes later, with her little parcel of meat put into a basket for her, and twenty pounds in her pocket, she was riding towards the post-office.

There she dismounted, and asking for a sheet of the best note-paper, wrote a line to Lady Lushington. It ran as follows:

“Dear Lady Lushington, – Thank you ever so much for your most kind invitation, which I take pleasure in accepting. My uncle is so glad that you have asked me, and I thank you now in his name as well as my own. I shall be in Paris on Tuesday night, so will you kindly send your maid, as you suggest, to meet me at the railway station? Please give my love to Mabel. – Yours very sincerely and gratefully, Annie Brooke.”

When the letter was finished it was put into a separate envelope from the one which had already been written to Mabel, and then the two were addressed and stamped and dropped by Annie’s own hand into the box of the village post-office. How excited she felt, and how triumphant! Yes – oh yes – she had surmounted every difficulty now, for long before her theft with regard to the cheque had been discovered she would have left the country. She could be agreeable now to every one. She could smile at her neighbours; she could talk to the village children; and, above all things, she could and would be very, very nice to Uncle Maurice.

When she arrived back at the Rectory such a rosy-faced, bright-eyed, pretty-looking girl walked into Mrs Shelf’s presence that that good woman hardly knew her. The sulky, disagreeable, selfish Annie of that morning had vanished, and a girl who was only too anxious to do what she could for every one appeared in her place.

“I met Dr Brett, Mrs Shelf – wasn’t it a piece of luck? – and sent him on to see Uncle Maurice. Has he been, Mrs Shelf?”

“Oh yes, my dear, he has; and I am glad to tell you he thinks that your dear uncle, with care and quiet, will soon be himself again. The doctor thinks a great lot of your being here, Annie, and says that your company will do your uncle more good than anything else in the world. He wants cheering up, he says, and to have his mind distracted from all his parish work. I know you will do what you can – won’t you?”

“Of course I shall,” said Annie. “And here are the things from the butcher’s,” she added.

“It was very thoughtful of you, Annie, to ride on to Rashleigh,” said Mrs Shelf. “I did want these sweetbreads. I mean to make a very delicate little stew out of them for your uncle’s dinner. The doctor says that he wants a lot of building up. He is an old man, my dear, and if we are not very precious of him, and careful of him, we sha’n’t keep him long. There are few of his like in this world, Annie, and it will be a sad day for many when the Lord calls him.”

“Oh, but that won’t be for years and years,” said Annie, who disliked this sort of talk immensely. “Well,” she added, “I will go and sit with uncle now for a bit, and will make his tea for him presently; I know just how he likes it.”

“Do, my dear. You know where his favourite cups and saucers are, and I am baking some special tea-cakes in the oven; and you can boil the kettle yourself, can’t you, Annie? for I shall be as busy as a bee looking after Peggie and the churning. That wench would try any one; she hasn’t a bit of head on her shoulders. And, by the way, Annie, what about the receipt? You paid Dawson, didn’t you?”

Annie was leaving the kitchen. She turned her head slightly. “Dawson will send the receipt,” she said. “To tell you the truth, I was in such a hurry to get back that I didn’t wait for it.”

“Well, my dear,” said Mrs Shelf, “that is all right; I expect it will arrive on Monday. The cart won’t be here before then, for we’ve got our week’s supply of meat in. It came this morning.”

“Splendid,” thought Annie. “By Monday I shall be away.”

She almost skipped into her uncle’s study. The old man was better already. He was lying back in his chair, and was reading a paper which had come by the afternoon’s post.

“Ah, here you are, my love!” he said.

“Here I am, uncle. I am so glad I met Dr Brett; he has made you better already.”

“He has, child; he always does me good.” Annie drew a chair forward, and pushed her hair back from her forehead. The impatient look had left her face. It looked tranquil and at its best.