Three Girls from School

“Sir, I must speak the truth,” said Mr Manchuri. “You are straight as a die and honest and open as the day; but that girl is crafty, insincere, essentially untrue. You can never turn staff of that sort into true gold, however hard you try.”

“I can at least protect a weak and erring girl,” said Saxon with feeling.

“The best thing you can possibly do for her, sir, is to get her out of England and away from her old friends; for she must never return to Mrs Lyttelton’s school.”

“Why so?” asked Saxon.

“It was my privilege, Mr Saxon, to escort Priscilla Weir back to England. She had been very little noticed by me or by anyone else while at Interlaken. But I think, if I may dare to say the word, that God took care of her, and she alone of all that party really enjoyed the glories of nature. For her the Jungfrau showed some of its majesty, and for her the other great mountains spoke unutterable secrets. She is a queer girl, but has a heart of gold, Mr Saxon, a heart of gold. Now that girl first attracted my attention because the resembled a child of my own – a child who has long lived with the angels. I can scarcely tell you what I felt when I saw the likeness, and since then I have probed into Priscilla’s heart and found that in all respects it resembles the heart of my Esther. Sir, the girl was lonely; she was subjected to temptation, and she yielded to it. She has told me about it, and when Mrs Lyttelton’s school opens it will be Priscilla’s painful duty to tell her mistress something which implicates very seriously your cousin, Miss Brooke. It also implicates Miss Lushington. Priscilla, is a guest in my house now. What she will be eventually I have not yet disclosed to her. It is my impression that Esther sent her to me, and I am not going to let her go in a hurry.”

“Yes, this is very interesting, and I am glad that a girl so worthy as Miss Weir should have found a friend in you,” was Saxon’s response. “But you have not explained what my cousin Annie has done.”

“No, no; it is not within my province. But I can only assure you that that unfortunate young lady has got herself, as well as two more of her schoolfellows – namely, Priscilla Weir and Mabel Lushington – into the most horrible scrape. Priscilla’s conscience will not allow her to live any longer under the load of unconfessed sin, and it is her duty to inform Mrs Lyttelton.”

“And me,” said Saxon in a determined voice.

“You must be patient, sir. I will not tell you Priscilla’s secrets. They are her own. But I should advise you immediately to take steps to remove Miss Brooke from Mrs Lyttelton’s school.” Saxon said a few words more, and then took his leave. He had a good deal of business to attend to that day in connection with the late Mr Brooke’s affairs; the winding-up of his small property and the paying of a few trifling outstanding bills must be attended to as soon as possible. But Annie – what was to be done with her? Saxon himself intended to return to Australia within a month. His business called him there, and he did not think he ought to delay. But what was to become of Annie?

She must not return to school; indeed, her circumstances forbade such a hurry. Would it be possible to settle her somewhere with Mrs Shelf? Saxon thought over this idea, but dismissed it. Annie was far too clever to be left in the hands of a person whom she could completely rule. The young man felt stunned at the depth of her wickedness. He spent a very anxious night, and returned by an early train on the following morning to Rashleigh. There he was met by the appalling information that Annie had gone.

It was Dan who first told him at the station. Dan blurted out the words, almost sobbing as he spoke. Mrs Shelf was so bad that she couldn’t speak. She was lying in the kitchen, where a neighbour had found her when she had come in in the morning. The poor woman was moaning to herself in the most dreadful way. Dan knew no particulars except that Miss Annie was nowhere to be found and that Mrs Shelf was ill.

“Really,” thought Saxon, “troubles thicken. I wonder when we shall see a gleam of daylight. Was there ever such a troublesome and terrible girl put into the world before?”

But the very greatness of the emergency roused all that was strongest and best in the young man. He soon got the truth out of poor Mrs Shelf, who blamed herself almost more than Annie for having gone to Rashleigh. Having tried to assure the poor old woman that she was not in fault, and that he was wrong not to have insisted on taking Annie with him to London, he further soothed her by saying that he would soon find Annie; that it was absolutely impossible for a young girl like Annie Brooke to lose herself in these days of clever detectives and patient investigations.

“We’ll have her back,” he said. “We’ll have her back, and you must get well. And now, I am going immediately – yes, immediately – to take steps. You must have a neighbour in to look after you, Mrs Shelf; and I will write you or send a telegram whenever I get news.”

“But oh, sir! there is something else on my mind,” said Mrs Shelf; and she told him the story of Dawson and the cheque.

“Oh, that is all right,” said Saxon in a cheery voice. “We will settle the matter with Dawson as soon as ever letters of administration have been taken out with regard to Mr Brooke’s will. Don’t fret any more about that and don’t blame poor little Annie more than you can help, Mrs Shelf.”

Mrs Shelf burst into tears. It was a relief to her to hear the manly voice and to feel the confident pressure of the strong young hand. If John Saxon could be cheery and hopeful about Annie, why should she despair?

When he was gone – and he left the house almost immediately afterwards – Mrs Shelf rose totteringly from the sofa in the old kitchen and began to potter about her work. All was not lost even for Annie Brooke, while John Saxon was there to defend and help her.

Chapter Twenty Eight

Tilda Freeman

It was a very tired Annie Brooke who arrived laden with her little bag late on a certain evening at Norton Paget. The darkness had quite set in, and when she entered the tiny station and took a third-class ticket to London she was not recognised.

There were two other girls of an inferior class to Annie going also to London by the train. She looked at them for a minute, but they did not know her; and when presently she found herself in the same carriage with, them, she felt a certain sense of repose in being in their company. But for the fact that these two girls were accompanying her to town, she would have given way to quite unreasoning terrors, for her nerves had been violently shaken by the events of the last fortnight. Those nerves had been weakened already by all the deceit through which she had lived now during long weeks. This final step, however, made her feel almost as though she had reached the breaking-point. She could have cried out in her fears. She hated the darkness; she hated the swift movement of the train. She wanted to reach London; and yet when she did get there she would not have the faintest idea where to go. With her money securely fastened about her little person, with her neat leather bag, she might have presented herself at any comfortable hotel and been sure of a good welcome, but somehow Annie felt afraid of grand hotels at that moment. She felt deep down, very deep in her heart that she was nothing more nor less than a runaway, a girl who had done something to be ashamed of, who was obliged to hide herself, and who was forced to leave her friends.

She shivered once or twice with cold, and one of the girls who had got into the same carriage, and who had stared very hard at Annie from time to time, noticing her great dejection and pallor and her want of any wraps, suddenly bent forward and said:

“If you please, miss, I have a cloak to spare, and if you’re taken with a chill I’d be very glad to lend it to you to wrap about you.”

“Thank you,” said Annie instantly. Her small teeth were beginning to chatter, and she was really glad of the girl’s offer.

A few minutes later she was wrapped up in the cloak, and feeling inexpressibly soothed and knowing that her disguise was now more effectual than ever, she dropped into an uneasy sleep. She slept for some time, and when she awoke again she found that the third-class compartment was full of people – a rough and motley crew – and that the two girls who had accompanied her into the carriage were both still present. One faced her; the other sat pressed up close to her side. It was the girl who had lent Annie the cloak who sat so near her.

“Are you a bit better, miss?” she said when Annie had opened her startled blue eyes and tried to collect her scattered senses.

“Oh yes,” said Annie; “but I am thirsty,” she added.

“Suck an orange, then; do,” said the girl. “They are a bit sour yet, but I bought some to-day for the journey.”

She immediately thrust her hand into a string bag and produced an unripe and very untempting-looking specimen of the orange tribe.

Annie took it and said, “Thank you.”

“Lor’ bless you,” said the girl, “but your ’ands is ’ot!”

“No, I am not hot at all,” said Annie; “I am more cold than hot. Thank you so much for the orange. How kind you are!”

The girl looked at Annie with great admiration and curiosity. Then she bent forward and whispered to her companion. They consulted together for a few minutes in low tones which could not possibly reach Annie’s ears owing to the swift-going motion of the train. Then the girl who was seated opposite to Annie bent towards her and said:

“Ain’t you Miss Annie Brooke of Rashleigh Rectory?”

This remark so took Annie by surprise and so completely upset her already tottering nerves that she gave a sudden cry and said in a sort of smothered voice:

“Oh, please, please don’t betray me!”

The girl now nodded to her companion, and the girl who was seated close to Annie said in a low, soothing tone:

“We ain’t goin’ to tell on yer, miss. If yer want to go up to town unbeknown to them as has the charge o’ yer, ’tain’t no affair o’ ours. I’m Tilda Freeman, and that ’ere girl is Martha Jones. I am a Lunnon gel, and Lunnon bred, and I was down on a wisit to my friend Martha Jones. She’s comin’ up with me for a bit to see the big town. Be you acquainted with Lunnon, miss, and do you know its ways?”

“No, I don’t know London very well,” said Annie. She had recovered some of her self-possession by this time. “You are mistaken in supposing,” she continued, trying to speak in as cheerful a tone as she could, “that I am – am going away privately from my friends. I have lost my dear uncle, and am obliged to go to London on business.”

“Yes, miss,” said Martha Jones, “and you has peeled off yer mournin’. You was in black when we seed you at the funeral. And why has yer come up by the night train, and why has yer taken a third-class ticket? And why do you ask us not to betray you? Don’t you tell no lies, miss, and you’ll be told no stories. You’re runnin’ away, and there’s no sayin’ but that it ’ave somethin’ to do with Dawson the butcher.”

“Dawson?” said Annie, her heart beginning to beat very hard.

“Dawson’s in a rare way about a cheque which ’e cashed for yer, miss. ’E can’t get ’is money back. Now Mrs Dawson is own sister to my mother, and we know all about it. There, miss, Tilda and me, we don’t want to be ’ard on a young lady like you, and if you ’ud confide in us, you ’ud find us your good friends. There ain’t no manner o’ use, miss, in your doin’ anythin’ else, for we can soon send a bit o’ a letter to Aunt Jane Dawson, and then the fat’s in the fire.”

“Oh, oh!” said Annie, “I – ” She roused herself; she pushed back her hat; she pressed her hot hand to her hot cheek. “Do you think we might open a little bit of the window?” she said.

Tilda immediately complied.

“There now,” she said; “that’s better. Didn’t I say as you was ’ot? – and no wonder. You tell Martha and me, and we’ll do wot we can for yer.”

“I don’t know what you mean about a cheque,” said Annie; “that is all nonsense – I mean – I am not going away on that account.”

“Oh no, miss,” said Tilda, winking at Martha. “Who hever said you was?”

“But you are right,” continued Annie; “I am going to town for a day or two, just – just – on a little business of my own.”

“Ain’t we smart?” said Tilda, winking again at Martha. Martha bent forward, and once more whispered in her companion’s ear.