World of Girls: The Story of a School — Chapters 41-44
DISGUISED.
Annie ran out of the field, mounted the stile which led into the wood, and stood there until the gypsy man and girl, and the boy with the donkey, had finally disappeared.
Then she left her hiding-place, and taking her little gingham bag out of the long grass, secured it once more in the front of her dress.
She felt queer and uncomfortable in her new dress, and the gypsy girl's heavy shoes tired her feet; but she was not to be turned from her purpose by any manner of discomforts, and she started bravely on her long trudge over the dusty roads, for her object was to follow the gypsies to their next encampment, about ten miles away.
She had managed, with some tact, to obtain a certain amount of information from the delighted gypsy girl.
The girl told Annie that she was very glad they were going from here; that this was a very dull place, and that they would not have stayed so long but for Mother Rachel, who, for some reasons of her own, had refused to stir.
Here the girl drew herself up short, and colored under her dark skin.
But Annie's tact never failed.
She even yawned a little, and seemed scarcely to hear the girl's words.
Now, in the distance, she followed these people.
In her disguise, uncomfortable as it was, she felt tolerably safe.
Should any of the people in Lavender House happen to pass her on the way, they would never recognize Annie Forest in this small gypsy maiden.
When she did approach the gypsies' dwelling she might have some hope of passing as one of themselves.
The only one whom she had really to fear was the girl with whom she had changed clothes, and she trusted to her wits to keep out of this young person's way.
When Zillah, her old gypsy nurse, had charmed her long ago with gypsy legends and stories, Annie had always begged to hear about the fair English children whom the gypsies stole, and Zillah had let her into some secrets which partly accounted for the fact that so few of these children are ever recovered.
She walked very fast now; her depression was gone, a great excitement, a great longing, a great hope, keeping her up.
She forgot that she had eaten nothing since breakfast; she forgot everything in all the world now but her great love for little Nan, and her desire to lay down her very life, if necessary, to rescue Nan from the terrible fate which awaited her if she was brought up as a gypsy's child.
Annie, however, was unaccustomed to such long walks, and besides, recent events had weakened her, and by the time she reached Sefton--for her road lay straight through this little town--she was so hot and thirsty that she looked around her anxiously to find some place of refreshment.
In an unconscious manner she paused before a restaurant, where she and several other girls of Lavender House had more than once been regaled with buns and milk.
The remembrance of the fresh milk and the nice buns came gratefully before the memory of the tired child now.
Forgetting her queer attire, she went into the shop, and walked boldly up to the counter.
Annie's disguise, however, was good, and the young woman who was serving, instead of bending forward with the usual gracious "What can I get for you, miss?"
said very sharply: "Go away at once, little girl; we don't allow beggars here; leave the shop instantly.
No, I have nothing for you."
Annie was about to reply rather hotly, for she had an idea that even a gypsy's money might purchase buns and milk, when she was suddenly startled, and almost terrified into betraying herself, by encountering the gentle and fixed stare of Miss Jane Bruce, who had been leaning over the counter and talking to one of the shop-women when Annie entered.
"Here is a penny for you, little girl," she said.
"You can get a nice hunch of stale bread for a penny in the shop at the corner of the High street."
Annie's eyes flashed back at the little lady, her lips quivered, and, clasping the penny, she rushed out of the shop.
"My dear," said Miss Jane, turning to her sister, "did you notice the extraordinary likeness that little gypsy girl bore to Annie Forest?"
Miss Agnes sighed.
"Not particularly, love," she answered; "but I scarcely looked at her.
I wonder if our dear little Annie is any happier than she was.
Ah, I think we have done here.
Good-afternoon, Mrs. Tremlett."
The little old ladies trotted off, giving no more thoughts to the gypsy child.
Poor Annie almost ran down the street, and never paused till she reached a shop of much humbler appearance, where she was served with some cold slices of German sausage, some indifferent bread and butter, and milk by no means over-good.
The coarse fare, and the rough people who surrounded her, made the poor child feel both sick and frightened.
She found she could only keep up her character by remaining almost silent, for the moment she opened her lips people turned round and stared at her.
She paid for her meal, however, and presently found herself at the other side of Sefton, and in a part of the country which was comparatively strange to her.
The gypsies' present encampment was about a mile away from the town of Oakley, a much larger place than Sefton.
Sefton and Oakley lay about six miles apart.
Annie trudged bravely on, her head aching; for, of course, as a gypsy girl, she could use no parasol to shade her from the sun.
At last the comparative cool of the evening arrived, and the little girl gave a sigh of relief, and looked forward to her bed and supper at Oakley.
She had made up her mind to sleep there, and to go to the gypsies' encampment very early in the morning.
It was quite dark by the time she reached Oakley, and she was now so tired, and her feet so blistered from walking in the gypsy girl's rough shoes, that she could scarcely proceed another step.
The noise and the size of Oakley, too, bewildered and frightened her.
She had learned a lesson in Sefton, and dared not venture into the more respectable streets.
How could she sleep in those hot, common, close houses?
Surely it would be better for her to lie down under a cool hedgerow--there could be no real cold on this lovely summer's night, and the hours would quickly pass, and the time soon arrive when she must go boldly in search of Nan.
She resolved to sleep in a hayfield which took her fancy just outside the town, and she only went into Oakley for the purpose of buying some bread and milk.
Annie was so far fortunate as to get a refreshing draught of really good milk from a woman who stood by a cottage door, and who gave her a piece of girdle-cake to eat with it.
"You're one of the gypsies, my dear?"
said the woman.
"I saw them passing in their caravans an hour back.
No doubt you are for taking up your old quarters in the copse, just alongside of Squire Thompson's long acre field.
How is it you are not with the rest of them, child?"
"I was late in starting," said Annie.
"Can you tell me the best way to get from here to the long acre field?"
"Oh, you take that turnstile, child, and keep in the narrow path by the cornfields; it's two miles and a half from here as the crow flies.
No, no, my dear, I don't want your pennies; but you might humor my little girl here by telling her fortune--she's wonderful taken by the gypsy folk."
Annie colored painfully.
The child came forward, and she crossed her hand with a piece of silver.
She looked at the little palm and muttered something about being rich and fortunate, and marrying a prince in disguise, and having no trouble whatever.
"Eh!
but that's a fine lot, is yours, Peggy," said the gratified mother.
Peggy, however, aged nine, had a wiser head on her young shoulders.
"She didn't tell no proper fortune," she said disparagingly, when Annie left the cottage.
"She didn't speak about no crosses, and no biting disappointments, and no bleeding wounds.
I don't believe in her, I don't. I like fortunes mixed, not all one way; them fortunes ain't natural, and I don't believe she's no proper gypsy girl."
CHAPTER XLII. HESTER.
At Lavender House the confusion, the terror, and the dismay were great.
For several hours the girls seemed quite to lose their heads, and just when, under Mrs. Willis' and the other teachers' calmness and determination, they were being restored to discipline and order, the excitement and alarm broke out afresh when some one brought Annie's little note to Mrs. Willis, and the school discovered that she also was missing.
On this occasion no one did doubt her motive; disobedient as her act was no one wasted words of blame on her.
All, from the head-mistress to the smallest child in the school, knew that it was love for little Nan that had taken Annie off; and the tears started to Mrs. Willis' eyes when she first read the tiny note, and then placed it tenderly in her desk.
Hester's face became almost ashen in its hue when she heard what Annie had done.
"Annie has gone herself to bring back Nan to you, Hester," said Phyllis.
"It was I told her, and I know now by her face that she must have made up her mind at once."
"Very disobedient of her to go," said Dora Russell; but no one took up Dora's tone, and Mary Price said, after a pause: "Disobedient or not, it was brave--it was really very plucky."
"It is my opinion," said Nora, "that if any one in the world can find little Nan it will be Annie.
You remember, Phyllis, how often she has talked to us about gypsies, and what a lot she knows about them?"
"Oh, yes; she'll be better than fifty policemen," echoed several girls;
and then two or three young faces were turned toward Hester, and some voice said almost scornfully: "You'll have to love Annie now; you'll have to admit that there is something good in our Annie when she brings your little Nan home again."
Hester's lip quivered; she tried to speak, but a sudden burst of tears came from her instead.
She walked slowly out of the astonished little group, who none of them believed that proud Hester Thornton could weep.
The wretched girl rushed up to her room, where she threw herself on her bed and gave way to some of the bitterest tears she had ever shed.
All her indifference to Annie, all her real unkindness, all her ever-increasing dislike came back now to torture and harass her.
She began to believe with the girls that Annie would be successful; she began dimly to acknowledge in her heart the strange power which this child possessed; she guessed that Annie would heap coals of fire on her head by bringing back her little sister.
She hoped, she longed, she could almost have found it in her heart to pray that some one else, not Annie, might save little Nan.
For not yet had Hester made up her mind to confess the truth about Annie Forest.
To confess the truth now meant humiliation in the eyes of the whole school.
Even for Nan's sake she could not, she would not be great enough for this.
Sobbing on her bed, trembling from head to foot, in an agony of almost uncontrollable grief, she could not bring her proud and stubborn little heart to accept God's only way of peace.
No, she hoped she might be able to influence Susan Drummond and induce her to confess, and if Annie was not cleared in that way, if she really saved little Nan, she would doubtless be restored to much of her lost favor in the school.
Hester had never been a favorite at Lavender House; but now her great trouble caused all the girls to speak to her kindly and considerately, and as she lay on her bed she presently heard a gentle step on the floor of her room--a cool little hand was laid tenderly on her forehead, and opening her swollen eyes, she met Cecil's loving gaze.
"There is no news yet, Hester," said Cecil; "but Mrs. Willis has just gone herself into Sefton, and will not lose an hour in getting further help.
Mrs. Willis looks quite haggard.
Of course she is very anxious both about Annie and Nan."
"Oh, Annie is safe enough," murmured Hester, burying her head in the bed-clothes.
"I don't know; Annie is very impulsive and very pretty; the gypsies may like to steal her too--of course she has gone straight to one of their encampments.
Naturally Mrs. Willis is most anxious."
Hester pressed her hand to her throbbing head.
"We are all so sorry for you, dear," said Cecil gently.
"Thank you--being sorry for one does not do a great deal of good, does it?"
"I thought sympathy always did good," replied Cecil, looking puzzled.
"Thank you," said Hester again.
She lay quite still for several minutes with her eyes closed.
Her face looked intensely unhappy.
Cecil was not easily repelled and she guessed only too surely that Hester's proud heart was suffering much.
She was puzzled, however, how to approach her, and had almost made up her mind to go away and beg of kind-hearted Miss Danesbury to see if she could come and do something, when through the open window there came the shrill sweet laughter and the eager, high-pitched tones of some of the youngest children in the school.
A
strange quiver passed over Hester's face at the sound; she sat up in bed, and gasped out in a half-strangled voice: "Oh!
I can't bear it--little Nan, little Nan!
Cecil, I am very, very unhappy."
"I know it, darling," said Cecil, and she put her arms round the excited girl.
"Oh, Hester!
don't turn away from me; do let us be unhappy together."
"But you did not care for Nan."
"I did--we all loved the pretty darling."
"Suppose I never see her again?"
said Hester half wildly.
"Oh, Cecil!
and mother left her to me!
mother gave her to me to take care of, and to bring to her some day in heaven.
Oh, little Nan, my pretty, my love, my sweet!
I think I could better bear her being dead than this."
"You could, Hester," said Cecil, "if she was never to be found; but I don't think God will give you such a terrible punishment.
I think little Nan will be restored to you.
Let us ask God to do it, Hetty--let us kneel down now, we two little girls, and pray to Him with all our might."
"I can't pray; don't ask me," said Hester, turning her face away.
"Then I will."
"But not here, Cecil.
Cecil, I am not good--I am not good enough to pray."
"We don't want to be good to pray," said Cecil.
"We want perhaps to be unhappy--perhaps sorry; but if God waited just for goodness, I don't think He would get many prayers."
"Well, I am unhappy, but not sorry.
No, no; don't ask me, I cannot pray."
CHAPTER XLIII. SUSAN.
Mrs. Willis came back at a very late hour from Sefton.
The police were confident that they must soon discover both children, but no tidings had yet been heard of either of them.
Mrs. Willis ordered her girls to bed, and went herself to kiss Hester and give her a special "good-night."
She was struck by the peculiarly unhappy, and even hardened, expression on the poor child's face, and felt that she did not half understand her.
In the middle of the night Hester awoke from a troubled dream.
She awoke with a sharp cry, so sharp and intense in its sound that had any girl been awake in the next room she must have heard it.
She felt that she could no longer remain close to that little empty cot.
She suddenly remembered that Susan Drummond would be alone to-night: what time so good as the present for having a long talk with Susan and getting her to clear Annie?
She slipped out of bed, put on her dressing-gown, and softly opening the door, ran down the passage to Susan's room.
Susan was in bed, and fast asleep.
Hester could see her face quite plainly in the moonlight, for Susan slept facing the window, and the blind was not drawn down.
Hester had some difficulty in awakening Miss Drummond, who, however, at last sat up in bed yawning prodigiously.
"What is the matter?
Is that you, Hester Thornton?
Have you got any news of little Nan?
Has Annie come back?"
"No, they are both still away.
Susy, I want to speak to you."
"Dear me!
what for?
must you speak in the middle of the night?"
"Yes, for I don't want any one else to know.
Oh, Susan, please don't go to sleep."
"My dear, I won't, if I can help it.
Do you mind throwing a little cold water over my face and head?
There is a can by the bedside.
I always keep one handy.
Ah, thanks--now I am wide awake.
I shall probably remain so for about two minutes.
Can you get your say over in that time?"
"I wonder, Susan," said Hester, "if you have got any heart--but heart or not, I have just come here to-night to tell you that I have found you out.
You are at the bottom of all this mischief about Annie Forest."
Susan had a most phlegmatic face, an utterly unemotional voice, and she now stared calmly at Hester and demanded to know what in the world she meant.
Hester felt her temper going, her self-control deserting her.
Susan's apparent innocence and indifference drove her half frantic.
"Oh, you are mean," she said.
"You pretend to be innocent, but you are the deepest and wickedest girl in the school.
I tell you, Susan, I have found you out--you put that caricature of Mrs. Willis into Cecil's book;
you changed Dora's theme.
I don't know why you did it, nor how you did it, but you are the guilty person, and you have allowed the sin of it to remain on Annie's shoulders all this time.
Oh, you are the very meanest girl I ever heard of!"
"Dear, dear!"
said Susan, "I wish I had not asked you to throw cold water over my head and face, and allow myself to be made very wet and uncomfortable, just to be told I am the meanest girl you ever met.
And pray what affair is this of yours?
You certainly don't love Annie Forest."
"I don't, but I want justice to be done to her.
Annie is very, very unhappy.
Oh, Susy, won't you go and tell Mrs. Willis the truth?"
"Really, my dear Hester, I think you are a little mad.
How long have you known all this about me, pray?"
"Oh, for some time; since--since the night the essay was changed."
"Ah, then, if what you state is true, you told Mrs. Willis a lie, for she distinctly asked you if you knew anything about the 'Muddy Stream,' and you said you didn't. I saw you--I remarked how very red you got when you plumped out that great lie!
My dear, if I am the meanest and wickedest girl in the school, prove it--go, tell Mrs. Willis what you know.
Now, if you will allow me, I will get back into the land of dreams."
Susan curled herself up once more in her bed, wrapped the bed-clothes tightly round her and was, to all appearance, oblivious of Hester's presence.
CHAPTER XLIV. UNDER THE HEDGE.
It is one thing to talk of the delights of sleeping under a hedgerow, and another to realize them.
A hayfield is a very charming place, but in the middle of the night, with the dew clinging to everything, it is apt to prove but a chilly bed; the most familiar objects put on strange and unreal forms, the most familiar sounds become loud and alarming.
Annie slept for about an hour soundly; then she awoke, trembling with cold in every limb, startled, and almost terrified by the oppressive loneliness of the night, sure that the insect life which surrounded her, and which would keep up successions of chirps, and croaks, and buzzes, was something mysterious and terrifying.
Annie was a brave child, but even brave little girls may be allowed to possess nerves under her present conditions, and when a spider ran across her face she started up with a scream of terror.
At this moment she almost regretted the close and dirty lodgings which she might have obtained for a few pence at Oakley.
The hay in the field which she had selected was partly cut and partly standing.
The cut portion had been piled up into little cocks and hillocks, and these, with the night shadows round them, appeared to the frightened child to assume large and half-human proportions.
She found she could not sleep any longer.
She wrapped her shawl tightly round her, and, crouching into the hedgerow, waited for the dawn.
That watched-for dawn seemed to the tired child as if it would never come; but at last her solitary vigil came to an end, the cold grew greater, a little gentle breeze stirred the uncut grass, and up in the sky overhead the stars became fainter and the atmosphere clearer.
Then came a little faint flush of pink, then a brighter light, and then all in a moment the birds burst into a perfect jubilee of song, the insects talked and chirped and buzzed in new tones, the hay-cocks became simply hay-cocks, the dew sparkled on the wet grass, the sun had risen, and the new day had begun.
Annie sat up and rubbed her tired eyes.
With the sunshine and brightness her versatile spirits revived; she buckled on her courage like an armor, and almost laughed at the miseries of the past few hours.
Once more she believed that success and victory would be hers, once more in her small way she was ready to do or die.
She believed absolutely in the holiness of her mission.
Love--love alone, simple and pure, was guiding her.
She gave no thought to after-consequences, she gave no memory to past events: her object now was to rescue Nan, and she herself was nothing.
Annie had a fellow-feeling, a rare sympathy with every little child; but no child had ever come to take Nan's place with her.
The child she had first begun to notice simply out of a naughty spirit of revenge, had twined herself round her heart, and Annie loved Nan all the more dearly because she had long ago repented of stealing her affections from Hester, and would gladly have restored her to her old place next to Hetty's heart.
Her love for Nan, therefore, had the purity and greatness which all love that calls forth self-sacrifice must possess.
Annie had denied herself, and kept away from Nan of late.
Now, indeed, she was going to rescue her; but if she thought of herself at all, it was with the certainty that for this present act of disobedience Mrs. Willis would dismiss her from the school, and she would not see little Nan again.
Never mind that, if Nan herself was saved.
Annie was disobedient, but on this occasion she was not unhappy; she had none of that remorse which troubled her so much after her wild picnic in the fairies' field.
On the contrary, she had a strange sense of peace and even guidance; she had confessed this sin to Mrs. Willis, and, though she was suspected of far worse, her own innocence kept her heart untroubled.
The verse which had occurred to her two mornings before still rang in her ears: "A soul which has sinned and is pardoned again."
The impulsive, eager child was possessed just now of something which men call True Courage; it was founded on the knowledge that God would help her, and was accordingly calm and strengthening.
Annie rose from her damp bed, and looked around her for a little stream where she might wash her face and hands; suddenly she remembered that face and hands were dyed, and that she would do best to leave them alone.
She smoothed out as best she could the ragged elf-locks which the gypsy maid had left on her curly head, and then covering her face with her hands, said simply and earnestly: "Please, my Father in heaven, help me to find little Nan;" then she set off through the cornfields in the direction of the gypsies' encampment.
