A Bunch of Cherries: A Story of Cherry Court School

"Without twenty pounds I shall be undone," said Bertha; "I need it to pay some debts. If the debts are not paid I shall be exposed, and if I go under, you, my pretty Florence, go under, too – understand that, please. Twenty pounds is cheap at the price, is it not?"

"But I have not got it, Bertha; I would give it you, but I cannot. You might as well ask me for my right hand."

"I tell you the great Mrs. Aylmer will do anything for her pretty and gifted niece. Ask her for the money to-morrow."

"For you?"

"By no means – for yourself."

"Bertha, I simply cannot."

"All right," said Bertha. "I give you until to-morrow at noon to decide. If by that time I have twenty pounds in my hand all right, your secret is respected and no catastrophe will happen, and your frightful deceit will never be found out. Only one person will know it, and that is I. But if you do not give me the twenty pounds I shall myself go to Mrs. Clavering and tell her everything. I shall be sorry; the consequences will be very disagreeable for me; I cannot even say if I shall quite escape the punishment of the law, but I expect I shall. In any case, you will be done for, my pretty Florence; your career will be over. Think of that; think of the little Mummy, as you call her, without the great Scholarship to back you up – think what it means."

"I do, I do; the only one I do think of at the present moment is my mother," said Florence. "When I think of her it gives me agony. But, Bertha, I cannot get that twenty pounds."

"You can; make an excuse to your Aunt Susan to obtain it. Now, my dear, you know why I have come to you; I will not trouble you any further. The twenty pounds at noon to-morrow, or you know the consequences." Bertha waved her hand with a light air, kissed the slim little figure in its Greek dress, then she opened the door and went out.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE VOICE OF GOD

After Bertha had left her, Florence sat in a stunned attitude. She was just rising slowly from her chair when there came a knock a second time at the door. This time Florence had not even a moment to say "Come in." The door was softly opened, and the fair, sweet face of Kitty peeped round it.

"Ah! I thought you were not in bed," she said; "I came to see you just for a minute to wish you good-night."

"I wish you had not come," said Florence. She looked so pale and frightened that Kitty glanced at her aghast.

"I came," said Kitty Sharston, "because I thought you ought to know that Mary and I" – she paused to swallow something in her throat. Kitty had suffered that night and had hidden her suffering; she did not want Florence to think that she had gone through any great time of sorrow. She looked at Florence attentively. "Mary Bateman and I agreed that I could come and tell you, Flo, how pleased – yes, how pleased we are that you have got the Scholarship, for you won it so nobly, Florence – no one could grudge it to you for a minute."

"Do you really mean that?" said Florence, eagerly. She went up to Kitty and seized both her hands.

"Why, how hot your hands feel, and, oh, please do not squeeze me quite so tightly," said Kitty, starting back a step.

Florence snatched away her hand. "If you knew me," said Florence; "if you knew me!"

"I do know you," said Kitty. "Oh, Flo – Tommy, dear – let me call you by the old name just for once – we are all so proud of you, we are really. I thought perhaps you would be a little uncomfortable thinking of me and of Mary, but we don't mind – we don't really. You see, we hadn't a chance, not a chance against genius like yours. We never guessed that you had such great genius, and it took us slightly by surprise; but of course we are glad, awfully glad, and perhaps Sir John will offer the Scholarship another year, and perhaps I will try then and – and succeed. But no one else had a chance with you, Florence, and we are glad for you, very glad."

"But you – what will you do? I know this means a great deal to you."

"I shall go away with Helen Dartmoor; I don't feel unhappy, not at all. I am sure Sir John will be my friend, and perhaps I may try for the Scholarship even though I am staying with Helen Dartmoor; I just came to tell you. Good-night, Florence, good-night. Mary and I love you; we'll always love you; we'll always be proud of you. Good-night, Florence."

Kitty ran up to her companion, kissed her hastily, and ran to the door. She had reached it, had opened the door and gone out, when Florence called her. Florence spoke her name faintly.

"Kitty, Kitty, come back."

But Kitty did not hear. She shut the door and ran down the passage, her steps sounding fainter, until Florence could hear them no longer. Then Florence Aylmer fell on her knees, and the tears which all this time had lain like a dead weight against her eyeballs, were loosened, and she sobbed as she had never sobbed before in all her life. Exhausted by her tears, she threw herself on her bed and, dressed as she was, sank into heavy slumber.

It was very early in the morning when she awoke. It was not yet five o'clock. Florence struck a light and saw by the little clock on the mantelpiece that the hands pointed to a quarter to five.

"There is time," she thought, eagerly. She sat up on her elbow and reflected. Her eyes were bright, her face paler than ever. Presently she got out of bed and fell on her knees; she pressed her face against the side of the bed, and it is doubtful whether many words came to her, but when she rose at last she seemed to hear an inward voice, and the voice was saying, "Refuse the Evil and choose the Good."

The voice kept on saying, "Refuse the Evil and choose the Good," and Florence felt more and more frightened, and more and more intensely anxious to do something in great haste before she had time for reflection.

She lit the candles and put them on the writing-table at the foot of the bed, and then she sat by the writing-table and pulled out a sheet of paper and began to write. She wrote rapidly, with scarcely a pause. Whenever she stopped the voice kept saying louder and clearer, louder and clearer, "Refuse the Evil and choose the Good."

Florence went on writing. At last she had finished. She folded up the sheet of paper and put it into an envelope. Then she hastily opened the drawer which contained the silver wreath and the ruby locket and the purse of gold and the parchment scroll. She collected them hastily, scarcely glancing at them, wrapped up in tissue-paper, then in brown, tied the little parcel with string, slipped the note inside the string and laid it on the table.

The voice which kept speaking to her was now quieter; it ceased to say, "Refuse the Evil," but once again through the silent room she seemed to hear the echo of the words, calm, great, all knowing, "Choose the Good, choose the Good," and then she hastily, very hastily got into her clothes, for it seemed to her that there was nothing else worth while in all the world but the following, the obeying of this voice. To choose the Good was greater than to choose Happiness, greater than to choose Ambition, greater than to choose Wealth. It was the only thing.

So she dressed herself in her everyday clothes, and, taking the little parcel, she softly unfastened the door, and then she slipped down through the silent house and entered Sir John Wallis's study, and laid the packet which contained all the symbols of her success and her letter of confession on his desk. Having done this, she turned away, came upstairs softly, and, going down another corridor, opened the door of her mother's room and went in.

Mrs. Aylmer was lying sound asleep; it was not yet six o'clock. She was very tired and she was sleeping heavily; she was enjoying pleasant dreams in her sleep, dreams of Florence, her dear, her darling, the success Florence had won, the happy future which lay before her.

Mrs. Aylmer's dreams were all one glow of great bliss, and in the midst of them she felt a cold, small hand laid upon her own, and, opening her eyes, she saw Florence bending over her.

"Mummy," said Florence, "I want you to get up at once."

"My dear, dear child, what can be the matter?" said Mrs. Aylmer the less. She started up in bed, rubbed her sleepy eyes and stared at her daughter. "What is it, Flo?"

"I cannot tell you just yet, mother, but I want you, if ever, ever in the whole course of your life you really loved me, to stand by me now. Something fearful has happened, mother dear, and I cannot tell you at present, but I want you to help me. I want to go back to Dawlish with you; I want to go back by the very first train this morning with you alone, Mummy; I will tell you on the way home what has happened, and then – but I cannot say any more; only come, mother, come. No one else would stand by me – but you will, won't you?"

"You frighten me dreadfully, Florence," said Mrs. Aylmer; "I cannot imagine what you are talking about. Have you lost your reason, my poor darling? Has this great, great triumph turned your brain? Oh, my child, my child!"

"No, mother," said poor Florence, "I am quite sane; I have not lost my reason. On the contrary, I think I have got it back again; I never felt saner than I do now, but – but you must help me, and there is no time to lose. I have done what I could; you must come away with me, mother, and we must go at once. I have looked up the trains. I'll go myself and wake up one of the servants and get a trap ordered, and we will go. Have you got a little money – that's the main thing?"

"I have got five pounds left out of Sir John's cheque."

"Then that will be splendid. I only want just enough to get back to Dawlish, to the little old house and to you. Oh, come, Mummy! oh, come!"

Florence's words were very brave and very insistent, and Mrs. Aylmer roused herself. She got out of bed, feeling a dull wonder stealing over her. Florence now took the command, and hastened her mother into her clothes, and herself packed her mother's things.

"Oh, my dear child, my best dress! don't let it get crushed," said the little widow.

Florence's trembling hands smoothed out the rich folds, she placed the dress in the top of the trunk, and before half-past six that morning Mrs. Aylmer was dressed and her things packed.

Then Florence went down again through the house and awoke one of the servants, and got her to wake a groom, who put a horse to a trap and brought it round to a side door, and so it came to pass that before seven o'clock that morning Mrs. Aylmer and Florence had left Cherry Court Park forever.

When they got into the train poor Mrs. Aylmer turned to Florence and begged for an explanation.

"I guess something dreadful has happened, but I can't imagine what it is," she said. "What does this mean, Florence?"

"It means, Mummy," said Florence, "that I have done that which no one but a mother would forgive. Listen, and I will tell you."

And then she told the whole story, from the very beginning, and Mrs. Aylmer listened with a cold feeling at her heart, and at first a great anger there; but when the story was finished, and Florence timidly took her mother's hands and looked into her eyes and said, "Are you a true enough mother to love me through it all?" then little Mrs. Aylmer's heart melted, and she flung her arms round Florence's neck and whispered through her sobs, "Oh, my child! oh, my child! I had a dreadful feeling last night when your Aunt Susan said that you were my daughter no longer; but this – this gives you to me forever."

"Of course it does, Mummy; Aunt Susan will never speak to me again. Oh, Mummy, what it is to have you! What should I do without you now?"

The rest of this story can be told in a few words. It would be impossible to depict the astonishment, the consternation, the amazement which Sir John felt when he read poor Florence's confession. After thinking matters over a short time, he sent for Mrs. Clavering, and he and that good woman had a long conference together. The upshot of it was that the guests were allowed to depart without knowing what had really happened, Sir John saying that he would write to them afterwards.