Three Girls from School

Annie had assured her friend that she need not be the least afraid, and, knowing the truth, or part of the truth, took her measures accordingly.

They had not been settled at the Belle Vue Hotel, Interlaken, more than two days before Lady Lushington, who was an exceedingly selfish, worldly woman, although quite kind-hearted, began to alter her mind with regard to both Annie Brooke and Priscilla Weir.

Priscilla, notwithstanding her fine and impressive eyes, her honest manner, and her earnest wish to make herself pleasant, looked undoubtedly gauche in the old-fashioned garments which were mostly made for her by poor Susan Martin. Lady Lushington found that though people remarked on Priscilla when she walked with the others in the fashionable part of the town or sat with them when they listened to the band or took her place in the salle-à-manger by their sides, yet those glances were by no means ones of admiration. The girl looked oppressed by a certain care, and dowdy beyond all words. Lady Lushington liked her, and yet she did not like her. She felt, however, bound to keep to her compact – to make the best of poor Priscilla. Accordingly, she told her friends that Priscilla Weir was a genius, and a little quaint with regard to her clothes, and that, in consequence, she had to put up with her peculiar dress.

“But she is such an honest good creature,” said Lady Lushington in conclusion, “that I am quite glad to have her as a companion for Mabel.”

Now the people to whom Lady Lushington gave this confidence were by no means interested in Priscilla’s predilection for quaint clothes. They pronounced her an oddity, and left her to the fate of all oddities – namely, to herself. Annie, on the contrary, who made the best of everything, and who looked quite ravishingly pretty in the smart frocks which Parker, by Lady Lushington’s desire, supplied her with, came in for that measure of praise which was denied to poor Priscie. Annie looked very modest, too, and had such charming, unaffected, ingenuous blue eyes, the blue eyes almost of a baby.

Lady Lushington found her first prejudices melting out of sight as she watched Annie’s grace and noticed her apparent unselfishness.

It was Annie’s cue to be unselfish during these days, and Lady Lushington began to form really golden opinions with regard to her character. She had been very nice on the journey, taking the most uncomfortable seat and thinking of every one’s comfort except her own. She had been delightful when they reached Interlaken, putting up with a very small and hot bedroom almost in the roof of the hotel. And now she began to make herself useful to Lady Lushington.

This great lady had a vast amount of voluminous correspondence. She liked writing to her friends in her own illegible hand, but she hated writing business letters. Now Annie wrote an exceedingly neat and legible hand, and when she offered herself as Lady Lushington’s amanuensis, making the request in the prettiest voice imaginable, and looking so eagerly desirous to help the good woman, Mabel’s aunt felt her last prejudice against Annie Brooke melting out of sight.

“Really, my dear,” she said, “you are good-natured. It would be a comfort to dictate my letters to you, but I am stupid about business letters. You do not mind if I dictate them very slowly?”

“Oh no,” said Annie, “by no means; and I should so love to write them for you. You do such a great deal for poor little me that if there is any small way in which I can help you I shall be more than glad. Dear Lady Lushington, you don’t know how I feel your kindness.”

“You are very good to say so, Miss Brooke. I have invited you here because you are Mabel’s friend.”

“Sweet Mabel!” murmured Annie; “her very greatest friend. But now, may I help you?”

“Well, bring those letters over here – that pile on the table. We may as well get through them.”

Annie immediately found note-paper, blotting-paper, pens and ink, also a supply of foreign stamps and post-cards. She laid the letters in a pile on Lady Lushington’s lap.

“Now,” she said, “if you will read them aloud to me and tell me what to say, I will write as slowly as ever you like. You can lean back in your comfortable chair; we will get through them as quickly as possible.”

This conversation took place on the first day when Annie wrote letters to Lady Lushington’s dictation. Soon the thing became a habit, and Lady Lushington secured the services of Miss Brooke for a couple of hours daily. She quite enjoyed it. It was so much less trouble, sitting lazily in her chair and getting that smart, pretty little thing to do the toilsome work for her. She felt that Annie was assuredly pretty, and much more interesting than poor Priscilla.

At last, on a day when the ladies had been at Interlaken for over a week, and were meaning to move on to Zermatt, Lady Lushington opened a letter, the contents of which caused her face to flush and her eyes to blaze with annoyance.

“Really,” she said, “this is too bad; this is simply abominable!”

“What is the matter?” asked Annie.

She had guessed, however, what the matter was, and her heart beat as she made the remark, for that morning she had seen, lying on the breakfast-table amongst a pile of letters directed to Lady Lushington, one in the well-known writing of Mrs Priestley; and if Annie had any doubt on that point, the dressmaker’s address was printed on the flap of the envelope. Her innocent eyes, however, never looked more innocent as she glanced up now from the blank sheet of paper on which she was about to write.

“Of course you know nothing about it, child,” said Lady Lushington, “but it is beyond belief; Mabel’s extravagance exceeds all bounds; I will not permit it for a single moment.”

“Mabel’s extravagance?” said Annie, looking surprised. “But surely dear Mabel is not extravagant. I have never, never noticed it; I assure you I haven’t.”

“Then what do you say to this?” said Lady Lushington. “That odious woman Priestley sends me a bill for one term’s clothing; total amount seventy pounds!”

“Seventy pounds,” said Annie, “for Mabel’s dress?” She pretended to look shocked. “It is impossible,” she said slowly. “There must be a mistake.”

“Of course there is a mistake. That abominable woman thinks that I am so rich that I don’t mind paying any amount. But she will learn that I am not to be imposed upon.”

“What do you think you will say to her?” asked Annie.

“I am sure I don’t know. I had best speak to Mabel herself.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” said Annie. “May gets so confused; dear May has no head for business; she won’t have the slightest idea what dress she did get. I know there was that lovely, expensive white satin for the school dance, and that beautiful dress of crêpe-de-Chine with pearly trimmings which she wore on the day of the break-up – the day when she received her great honour, her prize for literature; and there was that pale-blue evening-dress of hers, and the rose-coloured silk.”

“But I don’t remember those dresses at all. Where are they now?”

“I dare say she has left them at school,” said Annie.

“Left them at school?”

“She would probably not think them fine enough for you.”

“What absurdity! And even if she did get such uncalled-for, such unsuitable dresses, the sum total from a country dressmaker would not amount to seventy pounds.”

“Well, I tell you what I would do if I were you,” said Annie. “If you will let me, I will write in your name for the items. Mrs Priestley has only sent you ‘To account rendered,’ has she not?”

“That is a good idea,” said Lady Lushington. “I must speak to Mabel about her frocks when she appears. As a matter of fact, I do not mind what I spend on her now that she has come out, or partly come out, for of course she won’t be really introduced into society until she is presented next year. But seventy pounds for one schoolgirl’s wardrobe for a single term is too much.”

“Then I may write?” said Annie, her hand trembling a little.

“Certainly. Tell the woman to send all items at once here. Really, this has worried me.”

Lady Lushington did not notice that, notwithstanding all Annie’s apparent coolness, there were additional spots of colour on her cheeks, and that her hand shook a little as she penned the necessary words. Suppose the majestic Mrs Priestley recognised her handwriting! There was no help for it now, however, and any delay in grappling with the evil hour was welcome.

The letter was written and laid with several others on the table. Lady Lushington remarked after a minute’s pause:

“I may as well confide in you, Miss Brooke, that nothing ever astonished me more than Mabel’s success in gaining that literature prize; for you know, my dear, between you and me, she is not at all clever.”

“Oh, how you mistake her!” said Annie, with enthusiasm. “Dear Mabel does not care to talk about her deepest feelings or about those magnificent thoughts which visit her mind.”

“She has no thoughts, my dear, except the silliest,” said Mabel’s aunt, with a laugh.

“Oh, how you wrong her! Why, she is a poetess.”

“A what?” said Lady Lushington.

“She writes poems.”

“Nonsense! I don’t believe you.”

“I can show them to you.”

“Pray do not; I would not read them for the world. I class all rhymes as jingles. I detest them. Even Will Shakespeare could never gain my attention for more than half-a-minute.”

“Nevertheless, Mabel is clever, and her prize essay on ‘Idealism’ was undoubtedly the best in the school.”

“Yes? Wonders will never cease,” remarked Lady Lushington; “but, to tell you the truth, I was more annoyed than pleased when she got the prize. I did not want her to leave school for a year, and I only made that rash promise believing it to be quite impossible for me to fulfil. However, now I must make the best of it; and as, thank goodness! she does not pose as a genius, and is a fine, handsome girl, I have no doubt I shall get her married before long.”