Three Girls from School

“It must be horrible,” said Annie, who was standing that moment in the sunlit garden with an apple-tree behind her and her pretty little figure silhouetted against the evening sky.

“Not for me,” said young Saxon; “I love the life. Your England seems to suffocate me. In London I hadn’t room to breathe, and in that Paris to which you are going, Miss Brooke, I really felt ill.”

“Oh dear!” said Annie; “then you have not my sort of nature.”

He looked at her tentatively. She was fresh and young, and he had never talked to a real English girl before. But, somehow, she did not quite suit him. He was a keen judge of character, and those eyes of hers did not look long enough at any one. They soon lowered their lids as though they were keeping back a secret; and her pretty little mouth could also look unamiable at times. He hated himself for finding these flaws in a creature whom the rector worshipped, but nevertheless he could not help observing them.

Saxon arrived at the Rectory on the afternoon of Saturday, and he and Annie had already become, to all appearance, excellent friends.

When Sunday dawned he accompanied her to church, where the old rector preached one of the best sermons his affectionate congregation had ever listened to. Saxon and Annie were both long to remember that sermon and all that immediately followed, for on the afternoon of that same day the old man had another attack of drowsiness and giddiness. The doctor was sent for, and shook his head.

“He is not at all well,” said Dr Brett; “he is in no condition to stand the slightest shock. He did far too much when he preached to-day. Oh, Miss Annie, you need not look so dismal; I make no doubt we shall pull him round, but we have got to be very careful.”

Annie felt puzzled. Of course she was sorry for her uncle, but she had by no means reached the stage when she would give up her pleasure for him. She was, however, alarmed when the doctor said that the old man was in no condition to stand a shock. Was not a shock being prepared for him? Annie knew well how he loved her. She also knew how strong were his opinions with regard to right and wrong, with regard to goodness and wickedness. To old Mr Brooke Annie’s deed would bring such sorrow that his life, already in danger, might go out under the shock.

The girl felt herself trembling. She turned away from Saxon. He noticed her agitation, and went into the garden. Saxon felt that he had never liked Annie so much before.

“I thought her a rather pretty, rather heartless little thing,” he said to himself; “but I am mistaken. She does love the dear old man very truly.”

Meanwhile Annie was pacing up and down wondering what was to be done. Nothing would induce her to give up Paris; but if only she could go without giving her uncle that terrible shock with regard to the money!

All of a sudden a thought darted through her brain. Why should she not ask her cousin, John Saxon, to lend her twenty pounds? He had talked quite carelessly about his life in Tasmania last night, and, without intending to do so, had given Annie to understand that he was very comfortably off. The more she thought of borrowing money from her cousin, the more easy did it seem to her. If he gave it to her, she would go very early to-morrow to Rashleigh, pay Dawson, and bring back the receipt. Then all would be well. She could write a letter to her uncle explaining that she was forced to go to Paris for a little, but if he were really ill, she would not stay very long. In the meantime John Saxon would look after him. As to the money which she was about to borrow, Annie gave her shoulders a shrug.

“I’ll manage to let John have it some time,” she thought. “I don’t know how or when – but some time, and I don’t think he will be hard on me.”

Having made up her mind, she returned to the house. Mrs Shelf, who had been talking to Saxon, came up to her.

“You mustn’t fret really, missie,” she said. “All the doctor requires is that my dear master should have no anxiety of any sort. I am sure, miss, you would be the very last to give him any; and as we will all be equally careful, he will soon come round again.”

“Of course I wouldn’t hurt Uncle Maurice,” cried Annie. “What is he doing at present?” she added.

“He is asleep in his study, my dear; and I am going to watch by him this afternoon, for Dr Brett has given him a composing draught, and would like him to have a long rest. When he wakes I shall be handy to give him his tea. So I was thinking that if you and Mr Saxon went for a long walk it would do you both a sight of good.”

“Yes, do come, please,” said Saxon, who approached at that moment. “I want to see some of the country that you think so wild.”

“I shall be delighted,” said Annie, who felt that this proposal of Mrs Shelf’s would exactly fit in with her own plans.

Soon after three o’clock the young people started on their walk. Annie took her cousin on purpose up the hill at the back of the old Rectory and into the wildest part of the pariah, for she was determined to have him quite to herself. At last, when she was too tired to go any farther, they both sat down on the edge of a beetling crag, from where they could obtain a superb view both of land and ocean.

“Now,” said Annie, with a smile, “if you don’t call this a wild and desolate spot, I don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“The view is exceedingly fine,” replied Saxon; “but as to its being wild – why, look, Miss Annie, look – you can see a little thread of smoke there” – and he pointed to his right – “and there” – he pointed to his left; “in fact, all over the place. Each little thread of blue smoke,” he continued, “means a house, and each house means a family, or at least some human beings; and in addition to the human creatures, there are probably horses, and dogs, and cats, and barn-door fowls. Oh, I call this place thickly-peopled, if you ask me.”

Annie shuddered.

“I hate it,” she said with sudden emphasis.

“You what?” asked Saxon, bending towards her.

“Hate it,” she repeated. “I want to get away.”

“You can’t just now,” he said, speaking in a low, sympathetic tone. “It would be impossible – would it not? – while your uncle is so ill.”

“He isn’t really ill,” said Annie; “he just wants care.”

“He wants the sort of care you can give him,” repeated Saxon.

“Or you,” said Annie.

“I?” said the young man. “How can I possibly do what you would do for him?”

“You can do far better than I,” said Annie restlessly. “And the fact is, Cousin John – may I call you Cousin John?”

“Call me John, without the ‘cousin,’ as I will call you Annie if you don’t mind.”

“Then we are Annie and John to each other,” said the girl; “that means that we are friends. Give me your hand, John, to close the compact.” She laid her little white hand in his, and he grasped it with right goodwill.

“John,” said Annie, “I must confide in you; I have no one else.”

“Of course if I can help you I shall be glad,” he said a little coldly; for there was something in her words which brought back his distrust of her.

“Well, it is just this: I have to go to Paris for a short time – ”

“You have – I don’t understand.”

“And the painful part,” continued Annie, “is this – that I am unable to explain. But I can tell you this much. I have a school friend – indeed, two school friends – who are both in – in trouble; and they can’t possibly get out of their trouble without my help. If I go to Paris now to join my friend, things will be all right; if I don’t go, things will be all wrong.”

“But, excuse me,” said Saxon, “how can you go when your uncle is so ill?”

“That is it,” said Annie. “Of course, if he were in real danger I should be obliged to give my friends up. But he is not in danger, John; he only wants care. What I mean to do is this – or rather, I should say, what I should like to do. I would go, say, to-morrow to London, and then across to Paris, and there get through my little business and put things straight for those I love.”

Annie spoke most pathetically, and her blue eyes filled with tears.

“She has a feeling heart,” thought the young man. Once again his suspicions were disarmed.

He drew a little closer to her. She felt that she had secured his sympathy.

“Can’t you understand,” continued Annie, “that things may happen which involve other people? Can’t you understand?”

“It is difficult to know why you cannot speak about them, Annie,” replied the young man. “Nevertheless, if you say so, it is of course the case.”

“It is the case. I undertook, perhaps wrongly – although I don’t think so – to get a school fellow what she wanted most in the world last term. I wish you knew her; she is such a splendid, noble girl. She is very clever, too. I will tell you her name – Priscilla Weir. She has such a fine face, with, oh! so much in it. But she is unhappily situated. Her father is in India, and either cannot or will not help her; and she has no mother living, poor darling! and her uncle, her mother’s brother, is quite a dreadful sort of creature. Priscilla is, oh, so clever! She has quite wonderful talents. And what do you think this uncle wants to do? Why, to apprentice her to a dressmaker. Think of it – a dressmaker!”

John Saxon did think of it but he showed no surprise. One of the nicest girls he knew in Tasmania was a dressmaker. She was very well informed, and could talk well on many subjects. She read good books, and had a dear little house of her own, and often and often he sat and talked with her of an evening, when the day’s work was done and they were both at leisure to exchange confidences. John Saxon was not the least bit in love with the dressmaker, but for her sake now he could not condemn the occupation. He said, therefore, quietly:

“As long as women wear dresses there must be other women to make them, I suppose. I see nothing derogatory in that, Annie, provided your friend likes it.”

“Oh, how can you talk in such a way?” said Annie, her tone changing now to one of almost petulance. “Why, if Priscie were turned into a dressmaker she would lose her position; she wouldn’t have a chance; she would go under; and she is so clever – oh, so clever! It does not require that sort of cleverness to be a dressmaker.”

“Perhaps not,” said Saxon. “I begin to understand; your English view of the calling is not ours in Tasmania. And so you want to go to Paris to help this girl?”

“Yes; principally about her. In fact, I may say I am going almost wholly about her.”

“I am not to know the reason?”

“I cannot tell you, for it would betray her.”

“Have you spoken to your uncle on the subject?”

“Yes.”

“And what did he say?”

“Well,” said Annie eagerly, “it was this way. My other great friend is a certain Mabel Lushington. She is staying with her aunt Lady Lushington; and Lady Lushington most kindly sent me an invitation to join them both on Tuesday evening. They are going to take me to Switzerland and pay all my expenses, and of course I shall have a jolly time.”

“But would that help your friend, the prospective dressmaker?”

“Yes. It may sound very puzzling; but if I were to join Mabel Lushington, it would put things all right for my friend.”

“It is puzzling, of course, for me to understand, Annie; but I must take you at your word and suppose that it is so.”

“Indeed it is, John; indeed it is. And I am, oh, so unhappy about it!”

The blue eyes filled with tears. They looked very pretty as they brimmed over and the tears rolled down the smooth young cheeks. Annie could cry just a little without her appearance being at all spoiled thereby. On the contrary, a few tears added to a certain pathos which came at such times into her face. John Saxon found himself looking at the tears and accepting Annie’s view of the matter as quite plausible.

“It is very good of you to give me a little of your confidence,” he said.

“I do!” she answered resolutely; “for I want you to help me.”

“Anything in my power that is not wrong I will do,” he replied.

The firm tone of his voice, and the way in which he said, “Anything that is not wrong,” damped Annie’s hopes for a minute. Then she continued:

“I spoke to Uncle Maurice, not telling him, of course, anything about Priscie, but simply expressing a desire to accept the invitation, and he said that I should go and he would find the money if Lady Lushington was all right.”

“What does that mean?” asked Saxon.

“Oh, really, John, it was too bad. You know Uncle Maurice is very narrow-minded. He wanted to write first to Mrs Lyttelton to discover what sort of person Lady Lushington was, whether she was worldly or not; but, you see, there is no time, for if I don’t join Mabel and Lady Lushington on Tuesday night in Paris I shall not be able to join them at all, for they begin their travels on Wednesday morning, and I have not the slightest idea where I can pick them up. Besides, I don’t know foreign countries. I could perhaps get to Paris, where I should be met; but I couldn’t manage Switzerland or any place farther afield. Don’t you see that for yourself?”

“I do.”

“Well, John,” continued Annie, imperceptibly coming a little nearer to him, “I want you to do this for me. I want to go to Paris, but only for a day or two. I want to see Mabel and put that thing right with regard to poor, dear, clever Priscie; and then, if Uncle Maurice is really ill, I will come back. I know he would let me go if you persuaded him; and I want you to do so, dear John; and as he must not be worried in any way, will you lend me twenty pounds until Uncle Maurice is well enough to be troubled?”

“But you cannot go without telling him, Annie. Of course, my dear, I could and would lend you the money, but even your friend is not so important just now as your uncle. He loves to have you near him. I wish you could have heard how he spoke of you to me. You were his sunshine, his darling, the joy of his heart.”

“I know I am,” said Annie; “and it is what I want to be, and love to be,” she added. “But you are here, and there is my dear friend, oh! in such trouble; and she trusts me, and I can put everything right for her. Oh! if you would only lend me twenty pounds – and – and – tell Uncle Maurice yourself that I am going away for a few days and will be back again very soon. Won’t you lend it to me, John – just because we are cousins, and you have come all the way across the seas – the wide, wide seas – to help me at this pressing moment?”

“You affect me, Annie,” said the young man.

“You speak very strongly. I did not know schoolgirls desired things so badly as all this. Twenty pounds – it is nothing; it is yours for the asking. Here, I will give it to you now.”

He put his hand into his pocket and took out four five-pound notes.

“Here,” he said, “if this will make you happy and save your friend from the fate of being a village dressmaker, take it, and welcome.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” said Annie, trembling all over. “Oh! I don’t know how.”

“Don’t thank me,” he replied a little stiffly. “The thing is a mere bagatelle.”

“You shall have it back as soon as possible,” said Annie.

“At your convenience,” he replied. He still spoke stiffly.

She folded up the money and pushed the notes inside her gloves. Her whole face had changed, and to John Saxon, who watched her, it had not changed for the better. The pathos and entreaty had gone out of it. It was a hard little face once more; and again he noticed that want of candour and that inability to look any one straight in the face which he had already observed in her eyes. He wondered uneasily if he had done wrong in lending her the money; but what was he to do? She must really want it, poor little thing! and after all, to Saxon, who was accustomed to great journeys taken at a moment’s notice, and who had visited America and most of the habitable globe – although this was his first visit to England – a little trip to Paris meant less, than nothing.

“When do you propose to go?” he said to the girl when they presently rose to their feet.

“I should like to go to-morrow; in fact. I must if I am to meet Mabel and Lady Lushington.”

“Then perhaps it would do if I broke the information to your uncle to-morrow morning?”

“Yes; that will do quite beautifully. Oh! I don’t really know how to thank you.”

“Effect your worthy object, Annie, and I shall have obtained all the thanks I need,” was the young man’s reply.