Three Girls from School

She certainly looked so, and Dawson glanced after her as she left the shop with a very solemn expression of face. Just as she crossed the threshold she turned back to say:

“You will have another cheque instead of that as soon as the will is proved. You understand, of course, that there is a short delay always on account of those blessed lawyers when a death takes place,” said Mrs Shelf.

“Yes, madam, I quite understand that; and I think the best thing for me to do is to add the twenty pounds to my bill which you have asked me to send you.”

“Yes, perhaps you are right, Mr Dawson,” said Mrs Shelf, and she got soberly and laboriously back into the gig.

During her drive home Mrs Shelf did not utter a single word. To say that she was puzzled, amazed, frightened, would but inadequately explain the situation. Her heart beat with dull fear. Annie had cashed her uncle’s cheque – that cheque which had been drawn to pay the butcher’s bill. Annie had cashed it for herself and had not paid the bill. But, again, Annie had paid the bill two days later – not with the cheque, but with Bank of England notes. Really, the thing was too inexplicable. It did not look at all nice; Mrs Shelf, somehow, felt that it did not, but of course the child would explain. She would speak to her about it, and Annie would tell her. At present she could not understand it. Annie had taken twenty pounds of her uncle’s money; but then, again, Annie had restored it, and almost immediately.

“It’s enough to split anybody’s brain even to think the thing over,” was the good woman’s comment as, stiff and cold and tired and inexplicably saddened, she entered the desolate Rectory.

Rover, the watch-dog, had made no noise when Annie had slipped away. He was still in the yard, and ran joyfully to meet the old woman. She stopped for a minute to fondle him, but she had no heart to-night even to pet Rover.

She entered the house by the back-way, and immediately called Annie’s name. There was no response, and the chill and darkness of the house seemed to fall over her like a pall. A week ago, in very truth, peace had reigned here; but now peace had given way to tumults without and fears within. The very air seemed full of conflict.

Mrs Shelf called Annie’s name again. Then she set to work to light the lamps and stir up the kitchen fire. She put fresh coals on it and stood for a minute enjoying the pleasant warmth. She was not frightened – not yet at least – at Annie’s not responding to her cry. Annie Brooke was a queer creature, and as likely as not was in the garden. There was one thing certain, that if she had remained in the house she would have lit the lamps and made herself comfortable. She was the sort of girl who adored comfort. She liked the luxuries of life, and always chose the warmest corner and the snuggest seat in any room which she entered.

Mrs Shelf looked at the clock which ticked away solemnly in the corner, and was dismayed to find that it was very nearly eight. How stupid of her to stay such a long time at Dawson’s! No wonder Annie was tired at the lonely house. Dan came in after having done what was necessary for the horse, and asked Mrs Shelf if there was anything more he could do for her. Mrs Shelf said “No” in a testy voice. Dan was a clumsy youth, and she did not want him about the premises.

“You can go home,” she said. “Be here in time in the morning, for Mr John may want you to drive to the station early for him; there is no saying when he will be back. We will have a wire or a letter in the morning, though.”

Dan stumbled through the scullery and out into the yard. A minute or two afterwards the fastening of the yard gates was heard, and the sound of Dan’s footsteps dying away in the country lane.

“Poor child!” thought Mrs Shelf. “That story of Dawson’s is a caution, if ever there was one – to cash the cheque for herself and to bring the money back in two days. My word, she do beat creation! Nevertheless, poor lamb, she had best explain it her own way. I’d be the last to think hardly of her, who have had more or less the rearing of her – and she the light of that blessed saint’s eyes. She will explain it to me; it’s only one of her little, clever dodges for frightening people. She was always good at that; but, all the same, I wish she would come in. Goodness, it’s past eight! I’ll get her supper ready for her.”

Mrs Shelf prepared a very appetising meal. She laid the table in a cosy corner of the kitchen; then she went ponderously through the house, drawing down blinds and fastening shutters. After a time she returned to the kitchen. Still no Annie, and the supper was spoiling in the oven. To waste good food was a sore grief to Mrs Shelf’s honest heart.

“Drat the girl!” she said to herself impatiently; “why don’t she come out of the garden? Now I am feeling – what with nursing and grief – a touch of my old enemy the rheumatics, and I’ll have to go out in the damp and cold calling to her. But there, there! I mustn’t think of myself; he never did, bless him!”

The old woman wrapped a shawl about her head and shoulders, and opening the kitchen door, she passed through the yard into the beautiful garden. It was a moonlight night, and she could see across the lawns and over the flower-beds. The place looked ghostly and still and white, for there was a slight hoar-frost and the air was crisp and very chill.

“Annie, Annie, Annie!” called Mrs Shelf. “Come in, my dear; come in, my love. Your supper is waiting for you.”

No answer of any sort. Mrs Shelf went down the broad centre path and called again, “Annie, Annie, Annie!” But now echo took up her words, and “Annie, Annie, Annie!” came mockingly back on her ears. She felt a sudden sense of fright, and a swift and certain knowledge that Annie was not in the garden. She went back to the house, chilled to the bone and thoroughly frightened. As she did so she remembered John Saxon’s words, that she was to take very great and special care of Annie. Oh, how mad she had been to leave her alone for two hours and a half! And how queer and persistent of Annie to send her away! What did it mean? Did it mean anything or nothing at all?

“Oh God, help me!” thought the poor old woman. She sat down in a corner of the warm kitchen, clasping her hands on her knees and looking straight before her. Where was Annie? On the kitchen table she had laid a pile of the little things which she had bought at Rashleigh by Annie’s direction. Mechanically she remembered that she had supplied herself with some spools of cotton. She drew her work-box towards her, and opening it, prepared to drop them in. Lying just over a neatly folded piece of cambric which the old woman had been embroidering lay Annie’s note.

Mrs Shelf took it up, staggered towards the lamp, and read it. She read it once; she read it twice. She was alone in the house – absolutely alone – and no one knew, and – brave old lady – she never told any one to her dying day that after reading that note she had fainted dead away, and had lain motionless for a long time on the floor of the kitchen – that kitchen which Annie’s light footfall, as she firmly believed, would never enter again.

Chapter Twenty Seven

A Defender

When Annie left the “Beau Séjour” at Zermatt, Mabel felt herself in a state of distressing weakness and uncertainty. Annie had been her prop, and, as she had expressed it, she could not possibly go on being wicked without her. Accordingly, when the loss of the necklace was revealed to Lady Lushington on the following morning, Mabel let out a great deal more with regard to the loss of that treasure than Annie had intended her to do. She said nothing to deteriorate its value, but murmured so vaguely that she had certainly put it into the old trunk, and looked so sheepish when she was saying the words, that Lady Lushington began to suspect the truth.

“Now, Mabel,” she said, taking her niece’s hand and drawing her towards the light, “you are not at all good at concealing things; you have not the cleverness of your friend. I have for some time had my suspicions with regard to that quondam friend of yours, Annie Brooke. I don’t want you to betray her in any sense of the word, but I will know this: are you telling me the truth about the necklace? Did you put it into the lid of the trunk?”

Mabel prevaricated, stammered, blushed, and was forced to admit that she had not done so. On the top of this revelation, Lady Lushington was quick in pressing her niece to make a further one, and at last Mabel admitted that she thought, but was not at all sure, that Mr Manchuri, the old Jewish gentleman who had been staying at the Hotel Belle Vue, knew something about the necklace.

“It is quite safe; I am certain it is quite safe,” said Mabel; “but I think he knows about it. Had not we better write and ask Annie?”

“We will do nothing of the kind,” said Lady Lushington. “Mabel, I am disgusted with you. You can go away to your room. You are my niece, or I would never speak to you again; but if I do not get to the bottom of this mystery, and pretty quickly, too, my name is not Henrietta Lushington.”

“Oh dear,” thought poor Mabel, “what awful mischief I have done! Annie will be wild. Still, all is not known. I don’t think Aunt Henrietta can think the very worst of me even if she does learn the story of the necklace; that won’t tell her how I won the prize, and that won’t explain to her the true story of Mrs Priestley’s bill.”

As Mabel was leaving the room, very downcast and fearfully miserable, Lady Lushington called her back.

“I am disgusted with you,” she repeated. “Notwithstanding; justice is justice. I never wish you to have anything more to do with Annie Brooke; you never shall speak to her again, if I can help it. But in one thing she was right. I have received Mrs Priestley’s bill thin morning with all due apologies, and begging of me to forgive her for having, through a most gross error, and owing to the fault of one of her assistants, added another lady’s account to mine. Your bill for clothes, therefore, Mabel, only amounts to forty pounds, which is high, but allowable. As you are not going back to the school we shall never require Mrs Priestley’s services again. I will send her a cheque to-day for forty pounds, and that closes my transactions with the woman, whom, notwithstanding apologies, I do not consider too straight.”

Even this small consolation was better than nothing to Mabel. She went away to her room feeling very queer and trembling, and Lady Lushington took those immediate steps which she was fond of doing when really aroused. She did not know Mr Manchuri’s private address, but she was well aware that he was a wealthy Bond Street jeweller. She wrote, therefore, straight to his place of business, and her letter, when it reached him, electrified the good man to such an extent that he scarcely knew what he was doing. Fortunately for himself, he had not yet sold the necklace. Having read the letter, he sank down into a chair and gazed before him. Well did he remember the scene when Annie, looking sweet, innocent, and charming, had told him with a little pride of her knowledge with regard to gems, and had shown him with extreme diffidence the valuable necklace, and asked him what it was worth.

“What a fool I was to snap at it!” he said to himself. “I might have known that no honest girl of the class of Annie Brooke would have forty pounds to spend on jewellery. But just that hateful desire to make money came over me, and I grabbed at the thing. Now what is to be done?”

Mr Manchuri returned home early that day. Lady Lushington’s letter was burning a hole all the time in his pocket.

“What a comfort it is,” he said to himself, “that that dear, nice Priscilla is still in the house! She certainly told me nothing about the necklace. That little horror of an Annie Brooke begged and implored of me to keep the whole thing a secret. But the time has come, my young miss, when I fed absolutely absolved from my promise. I must consult Priscie. Priscie has as wise a head on her shoulders as even my own beloved Esther had.”

The old man entered the house; and Priscilla, who was busily reading in the library, hearing the click of the latch-key in the lock, ran out into the hall. Her face had improved during the last few days. The look of great anxiety had left it. She had, in short, made up her mind, but even Mr Manchuri did not quite know what Priscilla was going to do.

“You are in early,” she said, running to meet him and helping him off with his overcoat and putting his stick in the stand.

“Yes, Priscilla,” he answered; “and I am right glad you are in. The fact is, I came back to consult you, my dear.”

“You will have some tea first,” said Priscilla. “Now that is exactly what Esther would have said,” was the old man’s response. “What a fuss she did make about me, to be sure! And you are going to make a fool of me now. I was a young man when my Esther was there, and I am an old man now, but the difference seems bridged over, and I feel young once more with you so kind to me, Priscilla. But there, there, my child, there is no tea for me until I relieve my mind. Where were you sitting, my dear, when you heard me come into the house?”

“In the library. I had just discovered the most glorious edition of Don Quixote, and was revelling in it.”

“We will go back to the library, Priscilla, if you have no objection.”

Priscilla turned at once; Mr Manchuri followed her, and they entered the great library full of books of all sorts – rare editions, old folios, etc, – as well as a few really valuable pictures.

“Priscilla,” said Mr Manchuri, “you know all about Annie Brooke?”

“Yes,” said Priscilla, her face turning very pale. “I wanted to write to Annie; her dear uncle is dead.”

“You told me so a few days ago. You can write or not, just, as you please. In the meantime, can you explain this?”

As Mr Manchuri spoke he took Lady Lushington’s letter from his pocket and handed it to Priscilla. Priscilla read the following words:

“Dear Sir, – I regret to have to trouble you with regard to a small circumstance, but I have just to my unbounded astonishment, been informed by my niece, Mabel Lushington, that you can throw light on the disappearance of an old-fashioned pearl necklace set in silver which I bought for her at Interlaken the day before we left. I was assisted in the purchase by a girl who was of our party – a Miss Brooke. She professed to have a knowledge of gems, and took me to Zick’s shop in the High Street where I bought the trinket. I paid forty pounds for it, believing it to be a bargain of some value. At present the necklace is not forthcoming, and there has been an idea circulated in the hotel that it was stolen on our journey from Interlaken to Zermatt. My niece, however, now with great reluctance mentions your name, and says that she thinks you can explain the mystery. Will you be kind enough to do so without a moment’s loss of time? – Yours sincerely, Henrietta Lushington.”

When Priscilla had finished this letter she raised a white and startled face. Her eyes saw Mr Manchuri’s, who, on his part, was trying to read her through.

“What do you make of it?” he said.

“I never heard of the necklace,” she said.

“Well, perhaps you heard something else or you noticed something else. Were you sitting in the garden of the Hotel Belle Vue just before déjeuner on the day that you and I left Interlaken?”