World of Girls: The Story of a School — Chapters 38-40

IS SHE STILL GUILTY?

On the evening of that day Cecil Temple knocked at the door of Mrs. Willis' private sitting-room.

"Ah, Cecil!

is that you?"

said her governess.

"I am always glad to see you, dear; but I happen to be particularly busy to-night.

Have you anything in particular to say to me?"

"I only wanted to talk about Annie, Mrs. Willis.

You believe in her at last, don't you?"

"Believe in her at last!"

said the head-mistress in a tone of astonishment and deep pain.

"No, Cecil, my dear; you ask too much of my faith.

I do not believe in Annie."

Cecil paused; she hesitated, and seemed half afraid to proceed.

"Perhaps," she said at last in a slightly timid tone, "you have not seen her since this morning?"

"No; I have been particularly busy.

Besides, the eight culprits are under punishment; part of their punishment is that I will not see them."

"Don't you think, Mrs. Willis," said Cecil, "that Annie made rather a brave confession this morning?"

"I admit, my dear, that Annie spoke in somewhat of her old impulsive way;

she blamed herself, and did not try to screen her misdemeanors behind her companions.

In this one particular she reminded me of the old Annie who, notwithstanding all her faults, I used to trust and love.

But as to her confession being very brave, my dear Cecil, you must remember that she did not _confess_ until she was obliged; she knew, and so did all the other girls, that I could have got the truth out of old Betty had they chosen to keep their lips sealed.

Then, my dear, consider what she did.

On the very night that I was away she violated the trust I had in her--she bade me 'good-bye' with smiles and sweet glances, and then she did this in my absence.

No, Cecil, I fear poor Annie is not what we thought her.

She has done untold mischief during the half-year, and has willfully lied and deceived me.

I find, on comparing dates, that it was on the very night of the girls' picnic that Dora's theme was changed.

There is no doubt whatever that Annie was the guilty person.

I did my best to believe in her, and to depend on Mr. Everard's judgment of her character, but I confess I can do so no longer.

Cecil, dear.

I am not surprised that you look pale and sad.

No, we will not give up this poor Annie: we will try to love her even through her sin.

Ah!

poor child, poor child!

how much I have prayed for her!

She was to me as a child of my own.

Now, dear Cecil, I must ask you to leave me."

Cecil went slowly out of her governess' presence, and, wandering across the wide stone hall, she entered the play-room.

It happened to be a wet night, and the room was full of girls, who hung together in groups and whispered softly.

There were no loud voices, and, except from the little ones, there was no laughter.

A great depression hung over the place, and few could have recognized the happy girls of Lavender House in these sad young faces.

Cecil walked slowly into the room, and presently finding Hester Thornton, she sat down by her side.

"I can't get Mrs. Willis to see it," she said very sadly.

"What?"

asked Hester.

"Why, that we have got our old Annie back again; that she did take the girls out to that picnic, and was as wild, and reckless, and naughty as possible about it; and then, just like the old Annie I have always known, the moment the fun was over she began to repent, and that she has gone on repenting ever since, which has accounted for her poor sad little face and white cheeks.

Of course she longed to tell--Nora and Phyllis have told me so--but she would not betray them.

Now at last there is a load off her heart, and, though she is in great disgrace and punishment, she is not very unhappy.

I went to see her an hour ago, and I saw in her face that my own darling Annie has returned.

But what do you think Mrs. Willis does, Hester?

She is so hurt and disappointed, that she believes Annie is guilty of the other thing--she believes that Annie stole Dora's theme, and that she caricatured her in my book some time ago.

She believes it--she is sure of it.

Now, do you think, Hester, that Annie's face would look quite peaceful and happy to-night if she had only confessed half her faults--if she had this meanness, this sin, these lies still resting on her soul?

Oh!

I wish Mrs. Willis would see her!

I wish--I wish!

but I can do nothing.

You agree with me, don't you, Hester?

Just put yourself in Annie's place, and tell me if _you_ would feel happy, and if your heart would be at rest, if you had only confessed half your sin, and if through you all your schoolfellows were under disgrace and suspicion?

You could not, could you, Hester?

Why, Hester, how white you are!"

"You are so metaphysical," said Hester, rising; "you quite puzzle me.

How can I put myself in your friend Annie's place?

I never understood her--I never wanted to.

Put myself in her place?

--no, certainly that I'm never likely to.

I hope that I shall never be in such a predicament."

Hester walked away, and Cecil sat still in great perplexity.

Cecil was a girl with a true sense of religion.

The love of God guided every action of her simple and straightforward life.

She was neither beautiful nor clever; but no one in the school was more respected and honored, no one more sincerely loved.

Cecil knew what the peace of God meant, and when she saw even a shadowy reflection of that peace on Annie's little face, she was right in believing that she must be innocent of the guilt which was attributed to her.

The whole school assembled for prayers that night in the little chapel, and Mr. Everard, who had heard the story of that day's confession from Mrs. Willis, said a few words appropriate to the occasion to the unhappy young girls.

Whatever effect his words had on the others, and they were very simple and straightforward, Annie's face grew quiet and peaceful as she listened to them.

The old clergyman assured the girls that God was waiting to forgive those who truly repented, and that the way to repent was to rise up and sin no more.

"The present fun is not worth the after-pain," he said, in conclusion.

"It is an old saying that stolen waters are sweet, but only at the time;

afterward only those who drink of them know the full extent of their bitterness."

This little address from Mr. Everard strengthened poor Annie for an ordeal which was immediately before her, for Mrs. Willis asked all the school to follow her to the play-room, and there she told them that she was about to restore to them their lost privileges; that circumstances, in her opinion, now so strongly pointed the guilt of the stolen essay in the direction of one girl, that she could no longer ask the school to suffer for her sake.

"She still refuses to confess her sin," said Mrs. Willis, "but, unless another girl proclaims herself guilty, and proves to me beyond doubt that she drew the caricature which was found in Cecil Temple's book, and that she changed Dora Russell's essay, and, imitating her hand, put another in its place, I proclaim the guilty person to be Annie Forest, and on her alone I visit my displeasure.

You can retire to your rooms, young ladies.

Tomorrow morning Lavender House resumes its old cheerfulness."

CHAPTER XXXIX. HESTER'S HOUR OF TRIAL.

However calmly or however peacefully Annie slept that night, poor Hester did not close her eyes.

The white face of the girl she had wronged and injured kept rising before her.

Why had she so deceived Annie?

Why from the very first had she turned from her, and misjudged her, and misrepresented her?

Was Annie, indeed, all bad?

Hester had to own to herself that to-night Annie was better than she--was greater than she.

Could she now have undone the past, she would not have acted as she had done; she would not for the sake of a little paltry revenge have defiled her conscience with a lie, have told her governess that she could throw no light on the circumstance of the stolen essay.

This was the first lie Hester had ever told; she was naturally both straightforward and honorable, but her sin of sins, that which made her hard and almost unlovable, was an intensely proud and haughty spirit.

She was very sorry she had told that lie; she was very sorry she had yielded to that temptation; but not for worlds would she now humble herself to confess--not for worlds would she let the school know of her cowardice and shame.

No, if there was no other means of clearing Annie except through her confession, she must remain with the shadow of this sin over her to her dying day.

Hester, however, was now really unhappy, and also truly sorry for poor Annie.

Could she have got off without disgrace or punishment, she would have been truly glad to see Annie exonerated.

She was quite certain that Susan Drummond was at the bottom of all the mischief which had been done lately at Lavender House.

She could not make out how stupid Susan was clever enough to caricature and to imitate peoples' hands.

Still she was convinced that she was the guilty person, and she wondered and wondered if she could induce Susan to come forward and confess the truth, and so save Annie without bringing her, Hester, into any trouble.

She resolved to speak to Susan, and without confessing that she had been in the school-room on the night the essay was changed, to let her know plainly that she suspected her.

She became much calmer when she determined to carry out this resolve, and toward morning she fell asleep.

She was awakened at a very early hour by little Nan clambering over the side of her crib, and cuddling down cozily in a way she loved by Hester's side.

"Me so 'nug, 'nug," said little Nan.

"Oh, Hetty, Hetty, there's a wy on the teiling!"

Hester had then to rouse herself, and enter into an animated conversation on the subject of flies generally, and in especial she had to talk of that particular fly which would perambulate on the ceiling over Nan's head.

"Me like wies," said Nan, "and me like 'oo, Hetty, and me love--me love Annie."

Hester kissed her little sister passionately; but this last observation, accompanied by the expression of almost angelic devotion which filled little Nan's brown eyes, as she repeated that she liked flies and Hetty, but that she loved Annie, had the effect of again hardening her heart.

Hester's hour of trial, however, was at hand, and before that day was over she was to experience that awful emptiness and desolation which those know whom God is punishing.

Lessons went on as usual at Lavender House that morning, and, to the surprise of several, Annie was seen in her old place in class.

She worked with a steadiness quite new to her; no longer interlarding her hours of study with those indescribable glances of fun and mischief, first at one school-companion and then at another, which used to worry her teachers so much.

There were no merry glances from Annie that morning; but she worked steadily and rapidly, and went through that trying ordeal, her French verbs, with such satisfaction that mademoiselle was on the point of praising her, until she remembered that Annie was in disgrace.

After school, however, Annie did not join her companions in the grounds, but went up to her bedroom, where, by Mrs. Willis' orders, she was to remain until the girls went in.

She was to take her own exercise later in the day.

It was now the tenth of June--an intensely sultry day; a misty heat brooded over everything, and not a breath of air stirred the leaves in the trees.

The girls wandered about languidly, too enervated by the heat to care to join in any noisy games.

They were now restored to their full freedom, and there is no doubt they enjoyed the privileges of having little confabs, and whispering secrets to each other without having Miss Good and Miss Danesbury forever at their elbows.

They talked of many things--of the near approach of the holidays, of the prize day which was now so close at hand, of Annie's disgrace, and so on.

They wondered, many of them, if Annie would ever be brought to confess her sin, and, if not, how Mrs. Willis would act toward her.

Dora Russell said in her most contemptuous tones: "She is nothing, after all, but a charity child, and Mrs. Willis has supported her for years for nothing."

"Yes, and she's too clever by half; eh, poor old Muddy Stream?"

remarked a saucy little girl.

"By the way, Dora, dear, how goes the river now?

Has it lost itself in the arms of mother ocean yet?"

Dora turned red and walked away, and her young tormentor exclaimed with considerable gusto: "There, I have silenced her for a bit; I do hate the way she talks about charity children.

Whatever her faults, Annie is the sweetest and prettiest girl in the school, in my opinion."

In the meantime Hester was looking in all directions for Susan Drummond.

She thought the present a very fitting opportunity to open her attack on her, and she was the more anxious to bring her to reason as a certain look in Annie's face--a pallid and very weary look--had gone to her heart, and touched her in spite of herself.

Now, even though little Nan loved her, Hester would save Annie could she do so not at her own expense.

Look, however, as she would, nowhere could she find Miss Drummond.

She called and called, but no sleepy voice replied.

Susan, indeed, knew better; she had curled herself up in a hammock which hung between the boughs of a shady tree, and though Hester passed under her very head, she was sucking lollipops and going off comfortably into the land of dreams, and had no intention of replying.

Hester wandered down the shady walk, and at its farther end she was gratified by the sight of little Nan, who, under her nurse's charge, was trying to string daisies on the grass.

Hester sat down by her side, and Nan climbed over and made fine havoc of her neat print dress, and laughed, and was at her merriest and best.

"I hear say that that naughty Miss Forest has done something out-and-out disgraceful," whispered the nurse.

"Oh, don't!"

said Hester impatiently.

"Why should every one throw mud at a girl when she is down?

If poor Annie is naughty and guilty, she is suffering now."

"Annie _not_ naughty," said little Nan.

"Me love my own Annie; me do, me do."

"And you love your own poor old nurse, too?"

responded the somewhat jealous nurse.

Hester left the two playing happily together, the little one caressing her nurse, and blowing one or two kisses after her sister's retreating form.

Hester returned to the house, and went up to her room to prepare for dinner.

She had washed her hands, and was standing before the looking-glass re-plaiting her long hair, when Susan Drummond, looking extremely wild and excited, and with her eyes almost starting out of her head, rushed into the room.

"Oh, Hester, Hester!"

she gasped, and she flung herself on Hester's bed, with her face downward; she seemed absolutely deprived for the moment of the power of any further speech.

"What is the matter, Susan?"

inquired Hester half impatiently.

"What have you come into my room for?

Are you going into a fit of hysterics?

You had better control yourself, for the dinner gong will sound directly."

Susan gasped two or three times, made a rush to Hester's wash-hand stand, and, taking up a glass, poured some cold water into it, and gulped it down.

"Now I can speak," she said.

"I ran so fast that my breath quite left me.

Hester, put on your walking things or go without them, just as you please--only go at once if you would save her."

"Save whom?"

asked Hester.

"Your little sister--little Nan.

I--I saw it all.

I was in the hammock, and nobody knew I was there, and somehow I wasn't so sleepy as usual, and I heard Nan's voice, and I looked over the side of the hammock, and she was sitting on the grass picking daisies, and her nurse was with her, and presently you came up.

I heard you calling me, but I wasn't going to answer.

I felt too comfortable.

You stayed with Nan and her nurse for a little, and then went away; and I heard Nan's nurse say to her: 'Sit here, missy, till I come back to you; I am going to fetch another reel of sewing cotton from the house.

Sit still, missy; I'll be back directly.'

She went away, and Nan went on picking her daisies.

All on a sudden I heard Nan give a sharp little cry, and I looked over the hammock, and there was a tall, dark woman, with such a wicked face, and she snatched up Nan in her arms, and put a thick shawl over her face, and ran off with her.

It was all done in an instant.

I shouted and I scrambled out of the hammock, and I rushed down the path; but there wasn't a sign of anybody there.

I don't know where the woman went--it seemed as if the earth swallowed up both her and little Nan.

Why, Hester, are you going to faint?"

"Water!"

gasped Hester--"one sip--now let me go."

CHAPTER XL. A GYPSY MAID.

In a few moments every one in Lavender House was made acquainted with Susan's story.

At such a time ceremony was laid aside, dinner forgotten, teachers, pupils, servants all congregated in the grounds, all rushed to the spot where Nan's withered daisies still lay, all peered through the underwood, and all, alas!

looked in vain for the tall dark woman and the little child.

Little Nan, the baby of the school, had been stolen--there were loud and terrified lamentations.

Nan's nurse was almost tearing her hair, was rushing frantically here, there, and everywhere.

No one blamed the nurse for leaving her little charge in apparent safety for a few moments, but the poor woman's own distress was pitiable to see.

Mrs. Willis took Hester's hand, and told the poor stunned girl that she was sending to Sefton immediately for two or three policemen, and that in the meantime every man on the place should commence the search for the woman and child.

"Without any doubt," Mrs. Willis added, "we shall soon have our little Nan back again; it is quite impossible that the woman, whoever she is, can have taken her so far away in so short a time."

In the meantime, Annie in her bedroom heard the fuss and the noise.

She leaned out of her window and saw Phyllis in the distance; she called to her.

Phyllis ran up, the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Oh, something so dreadful!"

she gasped; "a wicked, wicked woman has stolen little Nan Thornton.

She ran off with her just where the undergrowth is so thick at the end of the shady walk.

It happened to her half an hour ago, and they are all looking, but they cannot find the woman or little Nan anywhere.

Oh, it is so dreadful!

Is that you, Mary?"

Phyllis ran off to join her sister, and Annie put her head in again, and looked round her pretty room.

"The gypsy," she murmured, "the tall, dark gypsy has taken little Nan!"

Her face was very white, her eyes shone, her lips expressed a firm and almost obstinate determination.

With all her usual impulsiveness, she decided on a course of action--she snatched up a piece of paper and scribbled a hasty line: "DEAR MOTHER-FRIEND:--However badly you think of Annie, Annie loves you with all her heart.

Forgive me, I must go myself to look for little Nan.

That tall, dark woman is a gypsy--I have seen her before; her name is Mother Rachel.

Tell Hetty I won't return until I bring her little sister back.

--Your repentant and sorrowful ANNIE."

Annie twisted up the note, directed it to Mrs. Willis, and left it on her dressing-table.

Then, with a wonderful amount of forethought for her, she emptied the contents of a little purse into a tiny gingham bag, which she fastened inside the front of her dress.

She put on her shady hat, and threw a shawl across her arm, and then, slipping softly downstairs, she went out through the deserted kitchens, down the back avenue, and past the laurel bush, until she came to the stile which led into the wood--she was going straight to the gypsies' encampment.

Annie, with some of the gypsy's characteristics in her own blood, had always taken an extraordinary interest in these queer wandering people.

Gypsies had a fascination for her, she loved stories about them; if a gypsy encampment was near, she always begged the teachers to walk in that direction.

Annie had a very vivid imagination, and in the days when she reigned as favorite in the school she used to make up stories for the express benefit of her companions.

These stories, as a rule, always turned upon the gypsies.

Many and many a time had the girls of Lavender House almost gasped with horror as Annie described the queer ways of these people.

For her, personally, their wildness and their freedom had a certain fascination, and she was heard in her gayest moments to remark that she would rather like to be stolen and adopted by a gypsy tribe.

Whenever Annie had an opportunity, she chatted with the gypsy wives, and allowed them to tell her fortune, and listened eagerly to their narratives.

When a little child she had once for several months been under the care of a nurse who was a reclaimed gypsy, and this girl had given her all kinds of information about them.

Annie often felt that she quite loved these wild people, and Mother Rachel was the first gypsy she cordially shrank from and disliked.

When the little girl started now on her wild-goose chase after Nan, she was by no means devoid of a plan of action.

The knowledge she had taken so many years to acquire came to her aid, and she determined to use it for Nan's benefit.

She knew that the gypsies, with all their wandering and erratic habits, had a certain attachment, if not for homes, at least for sites; she knew that as a rule they encamped over and over again in the same place; she knew that their wanderings were conducted with method, and their apparently lawless lives governed by strict self-made rules.

Annie made straight now for the encampment, which stood in a little dell at the other side of the fairies' field.

Here for weeks past the gypsies' tents had been seen; here the gypsy children had played, and the men and women smoked and lain about in the sun.

Annie entered the small field now, but uttered no exclamation of surprise when she found that all the tents, with the exception of one, had been removed, and that this tent also was being rapidly taken down by a man and a girl, while a tall boy stood by, holding a donkey by the bridle.

Annie wasted no time in looking for Nan here.

Before the girl and the man could see her, she darted behind a bush, and removing her little bag of money, hid it carefully under some long grass; then she pulled a very bright yellow sash out of her pocket, tied it round her blue cotton dress, and leaving her little shawl also on the ground, tripped gaily up to the tent.

She saw with pleasure that the girl who was helping the man was about her own size.

She went up and touched her on the shoulder.

"Look here," she said, "I want to make such a pretty play by-and-by--I want to play that I'm a gypsy girl.

Will you give me your clothes, if I give you mine?

See, mine are neat, and this sash is very handsome.

Will you have them?

Do.

I am so anxious to play at being a gypsy."

The girl turned and stared.

Annie's pretty blue print and gay sash were certainly tempting bait.

She glanced at her father.

"The little lady wants to change," she said in an eager voice.

The man nodded acquiescence, and the girl taking Annie's hand, ran quickly with her to the bottom of the field.

"You don't mean it, surely?"

she said.

"Eh, but I'm uncommon willing."

"Yes, I certainly mean it," said Annie.

"You are a dear, good, obliging girl, and how nice you will look in my pretty blue cotton!

I like that striped petticoat of yours, too, and that gay handkerchief you wear round your shoulders.

Thank you so very much.

Now, do I look like a real, real gypsy?"

"Your hair ain't ragged enough, miss." "Oh, clip it, then; clip it away.

I want to be quite the real thing.

Have you got a pair of scissors?"

The girl ran back to the tent, and presently returned to shear poor Annie's beautiful hair in truly rough fashion.

"Now, miss, you look much more like, only your arms are a bit too white.

Stay, we has got some walnut-juice; we was just a-using of it.

I'll touch you up fine, miss." So she did, darkening Annie's brown skin to a real gypsy tone.

"You're a dear, good girl," said Annie, in conclusion; and as the girl's father called her roughly at this moment, she was obliged to go away, looking ungainly enough in the English child's neat clothes.

CHAPTER XLI.