Three Girls from School

“Now I don’t understand you.”

“I will tell you, Mabel. You must listen very attentively, and if you positively decide to have nothing to do with it, you must not be shocked with me or attempt to betray me. What I do I do for your good – although, I will confess, partly for my own also.”

“Ah, I thought a little bit of self would come in,” said Mabel, who knew her school friend better, perhaps, than most people did.

“Yes,” said Annie quite calmly; “I don’t pretend for a moment that I haven’t a bit of self at the bottom of this. But let me tell you my scheme. Only before I breathe it, you will promise most, most faithfully not to betray me?”

“Of course I will. I know you better than you imagine, Annie. You have your good impulses, but you are not the very straightest girl in all the world.”

“Oh, thank you so much,” said Annie. She coloured faintly. “Perhaps you would not be straight,” she said after a minute, “if you had no prospect whatever in life but Uncle Maurice – Uncle Maurice, and all the old women in the parish, every one of them, setting their caps at him, and knitting comforters for his dear throat, and working slippers for his dear feet, and asking about his precious cough, and if he would like some more red-currant jelly. Perhaps you would be a little crooked if you had to sit by the hour holding slobbering babies on your lap at mothers’ meetings, and getting your best frock jammed over by the horrid village children. Oh, it is not a life to recommend itself, I can tell you!”

“Poor Annie!” said Mabel, “I do pity you. But, of course, you won’t be always with your uncle Maurice. Now forgive me for speaking as I did, and tell me your plan.”

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nest you are trying to land me in, Annie! As if Priscilla would consent!”

“Priscilla will consent. I have sounded her, and I know she will. She fights shy of it, of course, at first, but she will consent, and before morning.”

“But, Annie, what good will it do her? My going away from the school won’t give her money to stay here.”

“Ah,” said Annie, “now comes the crux. You must give her money to stay; you must manage it. You always have heaps of pocket-money. You must undertake to pay all her school expenses for at least a year.”

“Now you are a silly!” answered Mabel.

“To begin with, I have not the slightest idea what Priscilla’s school bills amount to. I know nothing about my own school bills, far less hers. Aunt Henrietta pays for me, and there’s an end of the thing.”

“Mabel,” said Annie, who was now very much excited, “don’t be horrid, please. Listen to me.”

“I am listening. You are propounding an impossible plan, and I am telling you my opinion. Have you anything further to say to me?”

“A great deal. Your aunt is very rich.”

“Rich? Oh, I imagine so. My aunt Henrietta – Lady Lushington – can go where she likes and do what she likes. She never denies herself anything at all.”

“Nor you, Mabel, anything at all.”

“Isn’t she denying me my liberty, and is that nothing?”

“She does it for your good,” said Annie; “there is no question of money in the matter. Now do listen to me. I happen to know what dear Priscie’s school bills amount to. She is taken cheaper than the other girls, and all her expenses for one term are abundantly covered by thirty pounds. Now most likely your expenses for a single term would amount to fifty or sixty pounds, perhaps even to more; but poor old Pris is taken, on special terms. Mrs Lyttelton doesn’t wish it to be known, but I found out; for one day I came across a letter from her uncle, in which he enclosed a cheque to Priscie for last term’s expenses, and I know exactly what it amounted to: twenty-seven pounds seventeen shillings and fourpence. I thought it rather funny of him to enclose the cheque to her, and spoke to her about it. You know she is fearfully untidy, and she had left it with her handkerchiefs and ribbons and things in her top drawer. She told me then, poor girl! that her uncle always sent her the cheque, expecting her to hand it over at once to Mrs Lyttelton. ‘He hates even paying that much for me,’ she said, ‘and I do wish I could get away from him altogether. He is horrid to me, and I lead a hateful life on account of him.’”

“Poor thing!” said Mabel. “It must be disagreeable for her. In some ways she is worse off than I am.”

“She would give all the world to stay here for another year,” continued Annie; “and it’s most cruel of that horrid old uncle Josiah of here to take her from school; for I know quite well that if she were allowed another twelve months here she could try for a big scholarship, and go to Girton or Newnham, and than be able to support herself in the way she likes best.”

“Yes, of course,” said Mabel, yawning and walking over towards the window, which she flung wide-open. “But still, I don’t see how I can help.”

“I know how you can help quite well, and how you shall help, and must help,” said Annie, speaking with great deliberation. “You must do what may seem just a leetle crooked in order that good may come Priscie’s life shall not be spoiled; you shall not have a dull year; and I – poor little Annie – must also have my fan, and perhaps before long. Now I will tell you at once, Mabel, how you can do it.”

Mabel sank down in a chair, and her face became quite white.

“This is what you must do,” continued Annie. “Mrs Priestley lends money to several ladies. I happen to know, for a maid Uncle Maurice had in his house last summer told me so. Mrs Priestley has made your dresses ever since you came to school; and your aunt pays the bills, doesn’t she, without worrying you much?”

“Yes.”

“And no one dresses so beautifully as you do in the whole school, Mabel.”

“Oh, well,” said Mabel, “it isn’t necessary for me to be careful – that is just it.”

“You will come to Mrs Priestley to-morrow, and I will go with you; or, if you like best, I will go alone and take a note from you to her. You have but to ask her to lend you thirty pounds, and to put it down in the bill, and there you are. She will have to lend it to you in notes and gold – of course a cheque would never do – and then you can give Pris the money for her next term’s schooling, and Mrs Lyttelton will accept it as a matter of course, and your aunt Henrietta will never know, for, at the worst, she will only scold you for being especially extravagant.”

“Yes – but – but,” said Mabel. Her cheeks were crimson and her eyes bright, and there was no doubt whatever that the temptation presented by cunning Annie was taking hold of her. “That is all very fine. But even if I dared to do the thing, the difficulties of keeping Priscie at the school might be got over for one term; but what about the two other terms? I can’t go on borrowing money from Mrs Priestley, more especially if I am not at the school myself.”

“As your aunt is so very rich, and as she will be taking you into society, it will be quite possible for you to spare thirty pounds each term out of your own allowance,” said Annie. “But even if you don’t wish to do that, I have no doubt at all that Lady Lushington is very generous, and that she will lend you the money for poor Priscie, if you only talk to her judiciously.”

“She might and she might not,” said Mabel; “there is no saying. And as to an allowance, she may not give me any, but just buy my things straight off as I want them. Oh dear, dear! I don’t see my way with regard to the other terms, even if I could borrow the money for this one.”

“You will see your way when the time comes; and, remember, you will have from now till Christmas to think of ways and means. In the meantime you will go to Paris, and from Paris to the different foreign spas, and, oh, won’t you have a jolly time, and won’t you be admired!”

“It certainly sounds tempting,” said Mabel, “although it seems to me that it is awfully wicked – ”

“As to its being so wicked,” interrupted Annie, “I can’t quite see that. Think what good it will do – helping poor old Pris, and giving yourself a right jolly time, and me also.”

“I can’t see where you come in,” said Mabel.

“Oh, but I do. You don’t suppose I am going to leave myself out in the cold, when I am managing so cleverly all these jolly things for you. You have got to get your aunt to invite me to join you in Paris. She will, I know, if you manage her properly. What fun we shall have together, May! How we shall enjoy ourselves! Of course I’ll have to come back here at the end of the holidays; but the summer holidays are long, and, oh! I shall be a happy girl.”

“You might certainly, if you came to visit me, think out a plan for paying Priscie’s school fees for the other terms,” said Mabel. “But, dear, dear! it is awfully dangerous. I don’t know how I can consent. If the whole thing were ever found out I should be disgraced for life!”

“If,” said Annie. “If is a very little word and means a great deal, May. These things won’t be found out, for the simple reason that it is to your interest, and to my interest, and to Priscie’s interest to keep the whole matter in the dark.”

Chapter Four

“I don’t want to do Wrong.”

When Annie had ended her conference with Mabel Lushington – a conference which left that young lady in a state of intense and even nervous excitement, in which she kept on repeating, “I won’t; I daren’t. Oh! but I long to. Oh! but I just wish I could,” until Annie felt inclined to beat her – she went away at last with the quiet assurance of a girl who had won a victory.

Her scheme was ripening to perfection. Mabel, of course, would yield; the money would be forthcoming. Priscilla would stay at the school, and Annie would have her hour of triumph.

It was half-an-hour before bed-time on that same evening when clever and wicked Annie had a further conference with Priscilla. She found poor Priscilla looking very pale and woe-begone, seated all by herself at one end of the long schoolroom.

“Come out,” said Annie; “it is a perfectly lovely evening, and we need not go up to our horrid beds for another half-hour.”

“You want to tempt me again,” said Priscilla, “I won’t go with you.”

“You needn’t,” said Annie with emphasis. “I have only this to say. Your prize paper is finished?”

“Yes.”