Three Girls from School

“Danger – in her direction? What do you mean?”

“There is very grave danger,” said Annie – “very grave indeed. I am more afraid about Priscie than about anything else in the whole of this most unfortunate affair.”

“Annie, what do you mean?”

“She is troubled with a conscience, bless you! and that conscience is talking to her every day and every night. Why, my dear Mabel, you can see the gnawings of self-reproach in her eyes and in her horrid melancholy manner. She is always in a dream, too, and starting up and having to shake herself when one talks to her suddenly. I know well what it means; she is on the verge of a confession.”

“What?” said Mabel.

“Yes, that is the danger we have to apprehend; at least it is one of the dangers. One day, for the sake of relieving her own miserable conscience, she will go to your aunt and tell her everything. Then where shall we be?”

“But she could not be so frightfully mean; I never, never would believe it of her.”

“Mark my words,” said Annie – “people with consciences, who believe they have committed a crime or a sin, never think of anybody but themselves. The thought of relieving their own miserable natures is the only thought that occurs to them. Now, we must get hold of that conscience of Priscie’s, and if it is going to be a stumbling-block we must cart her back to England.”

“We must indeed,” said Mabel. “For all that I say I don’t believe that she could be so mean.”

“Oh, nonsense,” said Annie; “I know better.” Mabel crouched on the floor by Annie’s side, her hand lying on Annie’s lap.

“You are wonderful,” she said after a pause, “quite wonderful. I can’t imagine how you think of all these things, and of course you are never wrong. Still – poor Priscie! you won’t make things very hard for her, Annie, will you?”

“I know exactly what I mean to do,” said Annie. “First of all I have to get you out of your present scrape, and then I shall go boldly to Priscie and find out her pent-up thoughts, and if they are in the direction I am fearing, I shall soon find means to protect ourselves from her and her conscience. But perhaps that is enough about her. On the present occasion we have got to think of you and Mrs Priestley.”

“Oh, indeed, yes! Oh, I am terrified!”

“Listen to me. But for my management at lunch to-day, Lady Lushington was so indignant that she would have blurted out the whole thing and asked you what you meant by running up such an outrageous bill. You would have given yourself away on the spot, for you have no presence of mind in an emergency. Now I am preparing you. Lady Lushington will speak to you to-morrow, and you are faithfully to describe the dresses that I have, told her you possess. Oh, I know you have not got them at all, but that does not matter; I will give you a list of them in the morning, and you are to hold to that list. But now, listen. This is the main point. At the same time you are to assure your aunt that Mrs Priestley has made a mistake and put down some one else’s dresses to you, for you are positive your bill is nearer forty pounds than seventy.”

“Then how in the world am I to pay the thirty pounds to Mrs Priestley?”

“I am coming to that. There is a lovely, lovely necklace in one of those shops full of articles of vertu in the town. It is worth, I know for a fact from fifty to sixty pounds; but I think your aunt could get it for forty. Now I want you to coax her to give it to you.”

“Oh Annie, what is the use? Is it likely that Aunt Henrietta, when she is so furious with me about a bill at my dressmaker’s, would spend forty pounds on one necklace just for me?”

“She is absolutely certain to do it if you manage her rightly; and I will help you. The necklace is a great bargain even at forty pounds. It is of real old pearls in a wonderful silver setting. Now a beautiful old necklace, once the property of a French marquise, which can be bought for forty pounds is a bargain. Lady Lushington loves making bargains. You must secure it.”

“Well, Annie, even if I do get it – and I am sure I do not care a bit for the old thing at the present moment – what am I to do with it?”

“You are a stupid, May; you really are. Your aunt, Lady Lushington, will go with you, and probably with me, to the shop. We must take her there early for fear that some one else snaps up the bargain. She will buy the necklace and give it to you. She will tell you to be careful of it, and then, according to her way, she will forget all about it.”

“Yes, perhaps so; but still, I do not see daylight.”

“Well, I do,” said Annie. “We will sell the necklace at another shop for thirty pounds, and send the money immediately to Mrs Priestley. At the same time I will write her a long letter and tell her that she must take thirty pounds off her bill, and apologise for having, owing to a press of customers, put some one else’s account to yours. Thus all will be right. Your aunt Hennie will not object to paying forty pounds for your school dresses, so that will be settled; and we may be able to get a little more than thirty pounds for the pearl necklace, and thus have some funds in hand towards Mrs Lyttelton’s Christmas school bill.”

“Oh,” said Mabel, “it is awful – awful! Really, I sometimes think my head will give way under the strain. Of course it may succeed; but there are so many ‘ifs.’ Suppose the man to whom we are selling the necklace shows it in his window the next day; what will Aunt Henrietta say then?”

“You goose!” replied Annie. “We shall be in Zermatt by then; and I will make an arrangement with the shopman to keep the necklace out of the window until we are off. Now I have everything as clear as daylight. You must coax and coax as you know how for the beautiful necklace, and you must get your aunt Henrietta, if possible, to pay forty pounds for it. That is the only thing to be done, but it just needs tact and resource. I shall be present with my tact and resource. I will allow you to be alone with your aunt to-morrow morning, and then, when I think she has scolded you long enough, I will come innocently into the room, and you must start the subject of the necklace; then trust to me for the rest. Mrs Priestley is asked in this letter, which will never go – for the one with the thirty pounds will take its place – to send the full items of her account to Zermatt. She will do so; and your aunt will be so much in love with you for your economy, and so full of remorse at having accused you of extravagance, that she will probably give you another necklace when there, which one you can keep. The main thing, however, is to get through this little business to-morrow. Now go to bed and to sleep, May Flower, and never say again that your Annie does not help you out of scrapes.”

Chapter Eighteen

Dawn at Interlaken

The next day dawned, fresh, clear, and beautiful, with that exquisite quality in the air which so characterises Interlaken. Priscilla, when she opened her eyes in the tiny bedroom which was close to Annie’s and just as much under the roof – although no one thought her unselfish for selecting it – sprang out of bed and approached the window. The glorious scene which lay before her with the majestic Jung Frau caused her to clasp her hands in a perfect ecstasy of happiness. The pure delight of living was over her at that moment. It was permeating her young being. For a time she forgot her present ignoble position – the sin she had sinned, the deceit in which she had had such an important share. She forgot everything but just that she herself was a little unit in God’s great world, a speck in His universe, and that God Himself was over all.

The girl fell on her knees, clasped her hands, and uttered a prayer of silent rapture. Then more soberly she returned to her bed and lay down where she could look at the ever-changing panorama of mountain and lake.

They were going on to Zermatt on the following day; and Zermatt would be still more beautiful – a little higher up, a little nearer those mountains which are as the Delectable Mountains in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, past the power of man to describe. Priscie owned to herself, as she lay in bed, that she was glad she had come.

“It was not going to be nice at first,” she thought. “But this repays everything. I shall remember it all for the rest of my days. I am not a bit good, I know; I have put goodness from me. I have chosen ambition, and the acquiring of knowledge, and the life of the student, and by-and-by an appointment of some worth where I can enjoy those things which I thirst for. But whatever is before me, I am never going to forget this scene. I am never going to forget this time. It is wonderfully good of God to give it to me, for I am such a wicked girl. Annie and Mabel are wicked too, but they could never have done what they did without my help. I am, therefore, worse than they – much worse.”

A servant knocked at the door and brought in Priscilla’s first breakfast. The man laid the coffee and rolls on a little table by the girl’s bedside, and Priscilla sat up and enjoyed her simple meal, eating it with appetite When she had come to the last crumb a sudden thought forced itself on her mind: “What is the matter with Annie? How strangely Annie looked at me last night! Why has she taken each a violent antipathy to me? What have I done to annoy her?”

The thought had scarcely come to Priscilla when she heard a light tap at her door, and in reply to her “Come in,” Annie entered.

“I thought you would be awake and having your breakfast, Priscie.”

Annie tripped lightly forward. She seated herself on Priscie’s bed.

“Isn’t it a glorious morning?” said Priscie. “Isn’t the view lovely?”

“I suppose so,” replied Annie in an indifferent tone. “But, to tell the truth,” she added, “I have not had time either to think of the beauty of the morning or the beauty of the view.”

“You surprise me,” said Priscilla. “I can never think of anything else. Why, we are just here for that,” she continued, fixing her great dark-grey eyes on Annie’s face.

“Just here for that?” laughed Annie. “Oh, you oddity! we are not here for anything of the kind. We are staying at Interlaken because Lady Lushington thinks it fashionable and correct to spend a little time here in the autumn. From Zermatt, I understand, we are going to Lucerne, and then presently to the Italian lakes; that is, Mabel and Lady Lushington are going to the Italian lakes. Of course, you and I will have to go back to the dreary school.”

“Oh, but the school is not dreary,” said Priscilla.

“I am glad you find it agreeable; it is more than I do.”

“But I thought you loved your school.”

“It is better than my home – that is all I can say; but as to loving it,” Annie cried, “I love the world, and the ways of the world, and I should like some day to be a great, fine lady with magnificent clothes, and men, in especial, bowing down to me and making love to me! That is my idea of true happiness.”

“Well, it is not mine,” said Priscilla. She moved restlessly.

“How white you are, Priscie! You don’t look a bit well.”

“I am quite well. Why do you imagine I am not?”

“You are so sad, too. What are you sad about?”

As Annie boldly uttered the last words Priscilla’s face underwent a queer change. A sort of anguish seemed to fill it. Her mouth quivered.

“I shall never, never be quite happy again, Annie Brooke; and you know it.”

“Oh, you goose!” said Annie. “Do you mean to say you are letting your little fiddle-faddle of a conscience prick you?”

“It is the voice of God within me. You dare not speak of it like that!”