A World of Girls: The Story of a School

Nan’s skin had been dyed with the walnut-juice, her pretty soft hair had been cut short, her dainty clothes had been changed for the most ragged gipsy garments, but still she was undoubtedly Nan, the child whom Annie had come to save.

From her uneasy slumbers the poor little one awoke with a cry of terror. She could not recognise Annie’s changed face, and clasped her hands before her eyes, and said piteously —

“Me want to go home – go ’way, naughty woman, me want my Annie.”

“Little darling!” said Annie, in her sweetest tones. The changed face had not appealed to Nan, but the old voice went straight to her baby heart; she stopped crying and looked anxiously toward the entrance of the room.

“Turn in, Annie – me here, Annie – little Nan want ’oo.”

Annie glanced around her in despair. Suddenly her quick eyes lighted on a jug of water. She flew to it, and washed and laved her face.

“Coming, darling,” she said, as she tried to remove the hateful dye. She succeeded partly, and when she came back, to her great joy, the child recognised her.

“Now, little precious, we will get out of this as fast as we can,” said Annie, and clasping Nan tightly in her arms, she prepared to return by the way she had come. Then and there, for the first time, there flashed across her memory the horrible fact that the stone door had swung back into its place, and that by no possible means could she open it. She and Nan and Tiger were buried in a living tomb, and must either stay there and perish, or await the tender mercies of the cruel Mother Rachel.

Nan, with her arms tightly clasped round Annie’s neck, began to cry fretfully. She was impatient to get out of this dismal place; she was no longer oppressed by fears, for with the Annie whom she loved she felt absolutely safe; but she was hungry and cold and uncomfortable, and it seemed but a step, to little inexperienced Nan, from Annie’s arms to her snug, cheerful nursery at Lavender House.

“Turn, Annie – turn home, Annie,” she begged, and, when Annie did not stir, she began to weep.

In truth, the poor, brave little girl was sadly puzzled, and her first gleam of returning hope lay in the remembrance of Zillah’s words, that there were generally two entrances to these old underground forts. Tiger, who seemed thoroughly at home in this little room, and had curled himself up comfortably on the heap of straw, had probably often been here before. Perhaps Tiger knew the way to the second entrance. Annie called him to her side.

“Tiger,” she said, going down on her knees, and looking full into his ugly but intelligent face, “Nan and I want to go out of this.”

Tiger wagged his stumpy tail.

“We are hungry, Tiger, and we want something to eat, and you’d like a bone, wouldn’t you?”

Tiger’s tail went with ferocious speed, and he licked Annie’s hand.

“There’s no use going back that way, dear dog,” continued the girl, pointing with her arm in the direction they had come. “The door is fastened, Tiger, and we can’t get out. We can’t get out because the door is shut.”

The dog’s tail had ceased to wag; he took in the situation, for his whole expression showed dejection, and he drooped his head.

It was now quite evident to Annie that Tiger had been here before, and that on some other occasion in his life he had wanted to get out and could not because the door was shut.

“Now, Tiger,” said Annie, speaking cheerfully, and rising to her feet, “we must get out. Nan and I are hungry, and you want your bone. Take us out the other way, good Tiger – the other way, dear dog.”

She moved instantly toward the little passage; the dog followed her.

“The other way,” she said, and she turned her back on the long narrow passage, and took a step or two into complete darkness. The dog began to whine, caught hold of her dress, and tried to pull her back.

“Quite right, Tiger, we won’t go that way,” said Annie instantly. She returned into the dimly-lighted room.

“Find a way – And a way out, Tiger,” she said.

The dog evidently understood her; he moved restlessly about the room. Finally he got up on the bed, pulled and scratched and tore away the straw at the upper end, then, wagging his tail, flew to Annie’s side. She came back with him. Beneath the straw was a tiny, tiny trap-door.

“Oh, Tiger!” said the girl; she went down on her knees, and, finding she could not stir it, wondered if this also was kept in its place by a system of balancing. She was right; after a very little pressing the door moved aside, and Annie saw four or five rudely carved steps.

“Come, Nan,” she said joyfully, “Tiger has saved us; these steps must lead us out.”

The dog, with a joyful whine, went down first, and Annie, clasping Nan tightly in her arms, followed him. Four, five, six steps they went down; then, to Annie’s great joy, she found that the next step began to ascend. Up and up she went, cheered by a welcome shaft of light. Finally she, Nan, and the dog found themselves emerging into the open air, through a hole which might have been taken for a large rabbit burrow.

Chapter Forty Seven

Rescued

The girl, the child, and the dog found themselves in a comparatively strange country – Annie had completely lost her bearings. She looked around her for some sign of the gipsies’ encampment; but whether she had really gone a greater distance than she imagined in those underground vaults, or whether the tents were hidden in some hollow of the ground, she did not know; she was only conscious that she was in a strange country, that Nan was clinging to her and crying for her breakfast, and that Tiger was sniffing the air anxiously. Annie guessed that Tiger could take them back to the camp, but this was by no means her wish. When she emerged out of the underground passage she was conscious for the first time of a strange and unknown experience. Absolute terror seized the brave child: she trembled from head to foot, her head ached violently, and the ground on which she stood seemed to reel, and the sky to turn round. She sat down for a moment on the green grass. What ailed her? where was she? how could she get home? Nan’s little piteous wail, “Me want my bekfas’, me want my nursie, me want Hetty,” almost irritated her.

“Oh, Nan,” she said at last piteously, “have you not got your own Annie? Oh, Nan, dear little Nan, Annie feels so ill!”

Nan had the biggest and softest of baby hearts – breakfast, nurse, Hetty, were all forgotten in the crowning desire to comfort Annie. She climbed on her knee and stroked her face and kissed her lips.

“’Oo better now?” she said in a tone of baby inquiry.

Annie roused herself with a great effort.

“Yes, darling,” she said; “we will try and get home. Come, Tiger. Tiger, dear, I don’t want to go back to the gipsies; take me the other way – take me to Oakley.”

Tiger again sniffed the air, looked anxiously at Annie, and trotted on in front. Little Nan in her ragged gipsy clothes walked sedately by Annie’s side.

“Where ’oo s’oes?” she said, pointing to the girl’s bare feet.

“Gone, Nan – gone. Never mind, I’ve got you. My little treasure, my little love, you’re safe at last.”

As Annie tottered, rather than walked, down a narrow path which led directly through a field of standing corn, she was startled by the sudden apparition of a bright-eyed girl, who appeared so suddenly in her path that she might have been supposed to have risen out of the very ground.

The girl stared hard at Annie, fixed her eyes inquiringly on Nan and Tiger, and then, turning on her heel, dashed up the path, went through a turn-stile, across the road, and into a cottage.

“Mother,” she exclaimed, “I said she warn’t a real gipsy: she’s a-coming back, and her face is all streaked like, and she has a little ’un along with her, and a dawg, and the only one as is gipsy is the dawg. Come and look at her, mother; oh, she is a fine take-in!”

The round-faced, good-humoured looking mother, whose name was Mrs Williams, had been washing and putting away the breakfast things when her daughter entered. She now wiped her hands hastily and came to the cottage door.

“Cross the road, and come to the stile, mother,” said the energetic Peggy – “oh, there she be a-creeping along – oh, ain’t she a take-in?”

“’Sakes alive!” ejaculated Mrs Williams, “the girl is ill! why, she can’t keep herself steady! There! I knew she’d fall; ah! poor little thing – poor little thing.”

It did not take Mrs Williams an instant to reach Annie’s side; and in another moment she had lifted her in her strong arms and carried her into the cottage, Peggy lifting Nan and following in the rear, while Tiger walked by their sides.

Chapter Forty Eight

Dark Days

A whole week had passed, and there were no tidings whatever of little Nan or of Annie Forest. No one at Lavender House had heard a word about them; the police came and went, detectives even arrived from London, but there were no traces whatever of the missing children.

The Midsummer holiday was now close at hand, but no one spoke of it or thought of it. Mrs Willis told the teachers that the prizes should be distributed, but she said she could invite no guests and could allow of no special festivities. Miss Danesbury and Miss Good repeated her words to the school-girls, who answered without hesitation that they did not wish for feasting and merriment; they would rather the day passed unnoticed. In truth, the fact that their baby was gone, that their favourite and prettiest and brightest school-mate had also disappeared, caused such gloom, such distress, such apprehension that even the most thoughtless of those girls could scarcely have laughed or been merry. School-hours were still kept after a fashion, but there was no life in the lessons. In truth, it seemed as if the sun would never shine again at Lavender House.

Hester was ill; not very ill – she had no fever, she had no cold; she had, as the good doctor explained it, nothing at all wrong, except that her nervous system had got a shock.